Every once in awhile, an action movie comes along that raises the game with its look, its drive and ingenuity. Back in 1981, Writer/Director George Miller did just that with "The Road Warrior". Miller's done it again and even BETTER with MAD MAX: FURY ROAD.
Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight) takes over in the role Mel Gibson owned in the first trilogy and conveys plenty of menace and mayhem with very few words.
Director Miller doesn't explain anything to the viewer on Max's backstory, assuming that you know coming in from previous films that Max lost his wife and daughter to murderous bands of bad guys when the world went apocalytptically south.
In a film this frenetic, there's little time for set up, it just takes off at full speed and never lets up.
As it opens, Max is captured and imprisoned by the roving mobs ruled by Immortan Joe, a gross, massive, oppressive leader that's a cross between Idi Amin and Baron Harkonnen from "Dune".
Immortan Joe holds women captive in his massive canyon domain, with the most beautiful half dozen of them separated and held as breeders.
When their unspoken leader, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) decides to escape the fortress with the breeders (like kidnapping the models at a Victoria's Secret catalog shoot) all hell ensues.
The entire film is one huge chase as Joe and his entire army of heavy metal, leather clad crazies try to retrieve his non-volunteer brides.
From opening frame to the last, the visuals of FURY ROAD are brilliant. Miller has said that he wanted to be the opposite of every post-apocalyptic film ever made. While films in the genre are typically drab, washed out movies in browns and grays, Miller wanted his film to explode with color and visual stimulation. Mission accomplished.
John Seale's camera never stops moving, sweeping in and around the vehicles, dropping in on top of a car chase from thousands of feet above and propelling you under, around and on top of every spike and skull bedazzled, nitro fueled vehicle.
The production design is fantastic. Every costume and weapon is unlike anything you've seen, taking the look of "Road Warrior" and blowing it out over the top with $180 million budget that shows on screen.
The film is all the more amazing when you realize that Miller did 90% of the film live with physical effects instead of CGI. It makes a huge difference and the real life danger makes the film much more exciting.
By the time our heroes are chased through canyons in the final sequence and bad guys are flying through the air on huge poles that bend back and forth, while exploding battle flares of all colors burst above them, you realize this non-stop action masterpiece CAN top itself and continues to do so over and over during its two hours.
Theron is excellent as Furiosa. She is the most bad-ass, take no prisoners female character in film since Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in Aliens.
Nicholas Hoult is also great (and unrecognizable) as Nux, who spends the first half hour of the film tethered to Max, who he is using as a human bloodbag.
This is one of the biggest, most exciting, non-stop and creative action films in years. At 70 years old, Miller has lost none of his energy and has seemingly been storing up fantastic visual ideas for the past thirty years to reinvest in the Max film legacy.
Buckle your seat belt for FURY ROAD, it's an incredible, dangerous and exhilarating ride that gets an A+.
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