There are a lot of things we as fans of the arts in general have waited for. Star Wars the Phantom Menace and Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy. Both of which are disappointments beyond belief. In the time we've waited for George Miller's return to madness we have seen him make Penguins dance and almost make a Justice League movie. The genius of Miller is his excellence at building tension in action sequences with low angle close ups and constant character reactions and then delivering in the anticipated action ten fold with insane audacity and pure reckless abandon! Mad Max reflects George Miller's mastery of chaos. In the first film we are given a man whose already crumbling insane society destroys his family and ideals on life. Making him Mad Max. He hunts the killers of his family not just for revenge, but to torture them. With that introduction both sequels, Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome give us a look at different cultures within the post apocalypse as Max himself stumbles in and out of the stories as a legend. He is no longer a man, but an idea of hope to many even though he does not want to be this world's savior. A new film from the maestro of the legend of Mad Max has hit and it has taken over a decade to make, but it's finally here! Is it worth it?
This is a George Miller film. This is the post apocalypse of insanity we've grown to love and watch it's inhabitants thrive in. This is the reckless abandon of filmmaking and a ballet of action sequences we could never look away. However, being in this day and age and the long passage of time since we saw two men enter and one man leave Thunderdome, some aspects have changed.
Behold Mad Max: Fury Road! Open to news reports of the old worlds destruction and the madness set upon the world! We are even treated to old school style credit openings of Charlize Theron as Furiosa and Tom Hardy as Mad Max! Standing before us is Max and his car. Immediately he is captured by some road thugs and thrown into torture and slavery, but not without a fight! A cruel leader by the name of Immortal Joe, complete with epic Darth Vader like breathing apparatus, has monopolized water, agriculture, breeding and of course the Guzzaline! Immortal Joe sees the return of actor Hugh Keays-Byrne, the original Mad Max villain Toecutter! Within this kingdom kept for the rich are hordes of young men known as War Boys, bred to fight and die as warriors of the engine and road, all with the promise of victorious death leading to their eventual afterlife in Valhalla! One of the best warriors known as Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron, is sent on a mission to take down a neighboring city and steal it's precious gasoline for Immortal Joe's War Machines, but Furiosa has other plans. It is this deviation from her orders that begins our long road battle far off into vast recesses of the desert wastelands of Earth. This is our set up with some nice twist and turns I will let you fine folks discover for yourselves upon viewing!
The post apocalypse makes anybody and everybody an enemy. Stab one back before it stabs yours. Thus the role of antagonists are thrown around a bit, even Max gets this monicker for a bit, but always seems to charm his way back into our hearts. The true antagonist throughout is Immortal Joe, preaching false lies to get his way and encased in body armor and respiratory systems to keep his malignant looking form alive. Just like in other Mad Max films all the different characters look more disfigured than the last. There is no lack of badass looking prosthetics and weaponry in this film.
Immortal Joe's greatest weapon is his arsenal of cars driven and maintained by his War Boys. Step one to a Mad Max film, epic vehicles. Furiosa's ride is literally called a War Rig which is decked out completely to the point that the driver's compartment is littered with guns. Immortal Joe has to travel in style so of course he has his War Boys riding monstrous vehicles with huge arsenals full of nitro. No caravan is complete without a truck backed by six huge drums and a bassist/guitarist shredding battle hymns with a flamethrower just to get the war boys worked up.
Dear god could I rant about the War boys. They are the living embodiment of everything the Mad Max films stand for. Painted white with blackened eyes, war tattoos, and they have a shrine to the wheels of their cars. They even have a berserker mode where they spray paint their mouths silver shiny! This is where one of the two biggest stand outs of the film comes from. Nicholas Hoult aka Beast of X-Men is a War Boy known as Nux. His introduction has him drained of blood and barely moving. He learns of Furiosa's betrayal and takes the call to arms manning his vehicle and being the first to attack the War Rig. This performance is utterly fun and infectious. You can't help but revel in his insanity, but the overall arc of his character is fascinating as he goes from complete insanity to redemption and questioning. It's a beautiful arc that stands above the rest.
Our second stand out, Charlize Theron is at her best as Furiosa. She will not hesitate to take out anyone to complete her secret mission and in doing so, she is beaten, dirtied, harassed, stabbed, shot and brutalized, but keeps running with an 'I die when you're all dead' attitude. She even has constructed a robotic arm to replace her lost limb ready to strangle throats again! Her character meeting Max gives us one of the most brutal and real fights since Rowdy Roddy and Keith David in They Live, but there is no hesitation, no breaths to take as there is just non stop brutality. Thus step two to a good Mad Max film is an all out hand-to-hand fight.
We've got our awesome vehicles, we've got our down and dirty fights, how is the car chase? The trailer showed a lot of action that looked spectacular. That's just the opening sequence and it's not even the half of it. Miller's knack for on the ground gritty camera angles and realistic stunts and action translate incredibly well to newer technology and budgets. Nit picky me wishes there was less CGI, but it is so far and few between, the old schooler in me lets it go. Especially when you're treated to about six giant car chases each deadlier than the last and a tribe of motorcycle warrior women, who have a knack for jumping on and off vehicles more so than Max himself!
Herein lies the one flaw. The film is called Mad Max, yet almost every other character seems more interesting than Max himself. Max's arc in the film is that of a victim of PTSD. He is haunted by his past which we are somewhat shown in flashbacks and nightmares and doesn't want to get involved with anyone or anything because of it. This leads to a good chunk of the first half of the movie without Max doing much action wise compared to the other characters, but it is built up to a final battle where Max goes full captain insane-o on everybody and we get a glimpse of the Max we know and love. For me it just wasn't enough. Before you pitchfork me for being a fanboy hear me out. Mel Gibson had amazing action sequences as the series lead where he was the forefront of the films. He was given quotable lines in them too, "That's not the Goose!" And my personal favorite, "I carry Mr. Death in my pocket!" That's gone here. Tom Hardy has the detriment of no real good dialogue and is overshadowed by the star studded and makeup FX driven cast. Granted these are filmmaker problems and not acting problems. My biggest bother was his weird accent. It was gruff and grimy, almost in the realm of Batman whereas Max always had the charming yet deadly Aussie voice. Then again the Colloquialisms of the Australian actors heavily featured in the first trilogy are all but gone in Fury Road, which of course started to dwindle a bit in Thunderdome. It's not completely Tom Hardy's fault, he just has the detriment of having big shoes to fill, but the accent was very distracting.
Was the wait worth it? Hell yes cranked to eleven! Everything is in perfect place here except for Max himself, which I feel yes is a big deal considering that he's the title character, but this is the best action movie I've seen in a long time and I would dare say topples Age of Ultron in jaw dropping moments. Everything else is way above the bar and we can believe maestro Miller can still rock with the best of them. I gives it four and a half gallons of Guzzaline out of five! Fuel up your tanker and go let your eyes bulge out in joy! 
