Mad Max: Fury Road Review

In the distant future, water wars have destroyed society, law and order has broken down and human civilisation has fallen. “Mad” Max Rockatansky, played by Tom Hardy, is a lone survivor in the arid desert wastelands of Australia. Captured by the 'War Boys’ - led by King Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) - Max is designated a universal blood donor and used as a blood bag for the weak War Boy Nux (Nicholas Hault). Elsewhere, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) drives her weaponised War Rig oil tanker to collect gasoline - a resource now far less coveted than water. Furiosa veers her War Rig off the predetermined route in an attempt to escape, alerting King Immortan Joe who realises that his five wives - specially selected for breeding - have also legged it. Immortan leads his entire fleet of vehicles and War Boys in hot pursuit of Furiosa and his wives. He’s particularly keen on getting his child - who he hopes is a son - out of his favourite wife, played by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. (This casting decision suggests that Fury Road is going to be as terrible as Transformers, but mercifully this is not the case.)

That is the set-up. I will not unravel any more of the plot, which is just as well because I don’t think I could continue if I tried. But essentially Mad Max: Fury Road is a prison break turned chase action thriller centred on the cooperation of slaves (of different kinds) in a desperate bid for freedom. Or put another way, it’s about a cult leader with the head of a scrotum searching for his desert bitches in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Take your pick.

This film is set in one of the bleakest dystopias in film history, inhabited by tyrannical Aussie mercenaries, Aussie slaves, Tom Hardy and King Immortan - a sadistic overlord who looks like the lovechild of Peter Jackson’s Sauron and Christopher Nolan’s Bane.

Along the way we meet demented Immortan-worshipping skinheads with full white body paint, who love nothing more than spraying their mouths with a silver elixir from an aerosol can, before dying for their cause in front of ‘witnesses’. This inspired act of martyrdom is all done with the expectation of gaining safe passage through the gates of Valhalla with Immortan.

In this two-hour blaze of spears and fire, there is close to no character development. I still don’t know for sure whether it’s just me, or whether this is what most action films are like, but Fury Road seems to offer no insights to the audience about Max, Furiosa or Nux. Max experiences unexplained visions of children and the elderly, both living and dead, who all seem angry at him. These moments clearly haunt Max, but they are never explored.

Fury Road is one of the first films I've ever watched with barely any memorable dialogue. The two best lines come from Max, both of which are uttered in the first five minutes of the film.

Despite the pretense and suggestions of profundity, Fury road is really quite a dumb film. It’s an excuse for the directors and cinematographers to capture big, vehicular orgies of oil, explosions, death and metal in pornographic detail. And I for one am more than okay with that. I watched Mad Max in 2D, and needed to lie down for the rest of the evening. God knows what it's like in 3D. Probably life-altering.

You can’t help but be in awe of the imagination of the psychopath/cinematographer that managed to put it all together. In all the warfare there is a crunchy physicality to the sounds of the gunshots, explosions and engines. I can’t quite explain it, but every action by the lead characters are somehow more visceral than in other comparatively bland action films.

Tom Hardy is excellent as Mad Max, playing the primitive survivor - who seems to communicate exclusively in threats – to a T. His previous roles in The Dark Knight Rises, Bronson and Warrior all come together in a glorious exhibition of acting prowess.

Many critics have said that the real star of the film is Charlize Theron, who plays the Oil Rig driver and all round badass Furiosa. Fury Road has even been heralded as a ‘feminist film’ that shines a beacon of female empowerment against male oppression. And when you watch it, you can see why.

For the first time ever I think I'm more puzzled after watching this film than when I first saw the trailer. This might just be because I desperately want to know just what the hell is going on, when really this film is best enjoyed when the viewer accepts the madness of the plot. Logic is kryptonite to a Mad Max audience. So if you do watch this film, and I sincerely hope that you do, don’t even try to follow. You will have lots of questions after watching the trailer. Alas, the film yields little in the way of explanation.

Perhaps the most amazing thing of all about Mad Max: Fury Road, however, is that the director George Miller's last film before creating this towering cinematic masterpiece was, I shit you not, Happy Feet Two.

I don’t know what possessed - and I use that word carefully - Miller to create such a spectacular display of noise and nonsense. Mad Max: Fury Road occupies a world of blood, fire, sand and oil. It is a truly mesmerising odyssey of what-the-fuckery, likely inspired by a ketamine-induced dream sequence that turned into a really, really bad trip. It really is that bleak. Memorable, certainly. But bleak.

If nothing else, Mad Max: Fury Road reminds us that we could be living in a world of naked barbarism, rogue armies, sacrificial cults, sandy wastelands and scarce resources, when in fact we get to live a life of taxes, Sainsbury's and Angry Birds. And for that reason, I absolutely love it.