Since the original, relatively low-budget Mad Max blasted onto cinema screens in
1979, George Miller’s dirt-smeared and petrol-injected vision of the future has
inspired much; it’s influenced film-makers James Cameron and Guillermo Del
Toro, given birth to the Borderlands
video game series, and set a standard for how the future looked in the
following decades. Even in 2015 references still leak into popular culture,
even in unlikely places such as The
Spongebob Movie, when a disaster heralds the end of the world and jovial
Mr. Krabs exclaims ‘Welcome to the apocalypse…I hope you like leather!’ So with
superstar Tom Hardy replacing the once unknown Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky
and a far larger budget in tow, has Miller managed to make his influential
universe fresh again?
Thankfully, the answer is a heartily bellowed ‘Yes’. Miller
has revitalised the formula by throwing the old one under a spike-covered truck
before digging it out of the dirt, dusting it down, giving it a fresh coat of
paint and revving up the engine once again. Max, given new life by a coarse and
world-weary Hardy is still the beacon of calm amongst the crushing insanity of
the post-apocalyptic world, whilst the struggle he faces is to help those in
need to amend for his past mistakes. Charlize Theron is also magnetic as
Furiosa, a shaven-headed badass sporting a monstrous metallic limb that would
give even Darth Vader pause for thought.
Furiosa comes head-to-head with Max as she attempts to
escort a group of women freed from a life of slavery and forced breeding across
the dusty wastes to the fabled ‘green places’. Hot on their trail is a
veritable army of psychotic drivers featuring manic ruler Immortan Joe (Hugh
Keays-Byrne) and war-boy Nux (Nicholas Hoult). Nux’s wide-eyed ferocity versus
Max’s gravel-toned serenity makes for some enjoyable viewing, but Furiosa and
her troupe take centre stage, featuring a surprisingly capable Rosie
Huntington-Whitely and an unrecognisable Zoë Kravitz.
But the humans aren’t the real stars of Fury Road, those would be the action sequences. There’s no other
way to say it: they’re perfect. Every single movement of the monumental
vehicular warfare is a piece of expertly controlled chaos. Miller’s approach to
action is the anti-Michael Bay: every explosion means something, every
character has a discernible motivation, and we root for the right people. Even
as jagged wrecks rock the scenery and screaming goons leap from hideously
cannibalised cars, you know exactly what’s going on and who’s fighting who. I remember
first watching The Raid 2 and
wondering how the car chase was achieved without actual loss of life, but Fury Road makes it look like child’s
play.
Composer Junkie XL – whose music for 300: Rise of an Empire and Divergent
was overly-bombastic and bland as anything – finally comes into his own here,
the crashing drums and rumbling bass sounding home sweet home amongst the
madness of Miller’s torn landscapes. The cinematography, a frenetic handheld
affair punctuated by breath-taking wide shots reaches out and yanks the viewer
through the frame in an experience more immersive than any 3D could possibly achieve.
Mad Max: Fury Road
shows Fast & Furious how the laws
of physics should be broken, explains to Borderlands
what crazy really means, and demonstrates that the fourth film in a
franchise needn’t run out of steam. Watching it is akin to having your face
thrust into a blender while heavy metal screeches in your ears, in the best
possible way. Just one question: when do we get a Flaming Guitarist action
figure?
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
