Mad Max: Fury Road is a one long relentless chase film, literally from start to end. Unlike it’s predecessors there’s plenty of colourful characters and insanely orchestrated action (acrobatic, pyrotechnic and vehicular) to keep the pace modulated. Director George Miller has obviously made the best use of his time since the last film (the childishly immature Beyond Thunderdome, which came out exactly 3 decades ago) to conceive the often-imitated Mad Max world in better, more distinctly clairvoyant terms. Despite the narrative being constantly moving there are moments of quite reflection and pondering while the action, even during it’s most bizarrely brazen visualisations, seems perfectly logical, and most importantly, clear.
Unlike the Mel Gibson films Tom Hardy’s version of Max finds an ally both his equal and in some ways superior in Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and their team up in the third act makes the daring, crazed standoff against big baddie Immortan Joe more believable. The film offers plenty of Easter eggs for those that have seen the originals but that doesn’t take away from the fun factor for those that haven’t. In some ways, in function if not execution, this latest rendition of the familiar post apocalyptic world reminded me of Wages of Fear, the black and white French classic (especially during the scenes at night with the heavy duty escape truck stuck in a swamp) in how each situation was more ironically perilous and terrifying than the previous but with more of a grunge edge and a punk soul.
Not content with being simply a triumph of manic, innovative action alone, the film has plenty to say about humanity and even a lowly minion, Nux, is more fully developed than any character ever was in the first trilogy. Fury Road is certainly one of the more exciting action films to have come out to cinemas in recent years and in terms of scope, execution and characterisation, this fourth film in the series trumps not just it’s predecessor, but many other throwaway summer films in every conceivable way.
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