Mad Max: Fury Road

United States / Australia, 2015
Directed by George Miller

Mad Max: Fury Road opens on a shot of a desert landscape, with a shocking contrast between the  scorched yellow-orange sand and the bright blue sky. A wildman stands alone in this wasteland, muttering about the voices of those he's lost "worming their way into the black matter of my brain". A two-headed mutant lizard scuttles past him - he crushes it with his boot and eats it alive.

From this cracked and crazy opening, Fury Road more than earns the word "mad" in its title. This movie is completely bonkers. With his original Mad Max films director George Miller essentially invented the post-apocalyptic genre as we know it today, with its heavy metal / punk stylings (or, as succinctly described in Spongebob: "Welcome to the apocalypse, Mr. Squidward...I hope you like leather"). With Fury Road, George Miller has been given a gargantuan budget to bring his mad vision to life on an epic scale, and the results are awe-inspiring. Fury Road is essentially a two-hour long chase scene, set in a breathtakingly detailed, truly mad apocalyptic world.

And what incredible chase scenes! The action in Fury Road is beautifully choreographed and executed - George Miller is a maestro of vehicular mayhem. Take this sequence as an example:

There are a lot of moving parts to this sequence, with our heroes in the "War Rig", Immortan Joe in pursuit, and a gang of motorcycle bandits on the attack. Yet the action never becomes chaotic or confusing - we always know where everyone is situated, what they are doing, and what the immediate dangers are. And all those crazy leaping motorcycles and explosions? They're real - it's actual stuntwork, not CGI. It's understandable why most action films create much of their action on computers, as it's easier and a hell of a lot safer, but CGI never holds the same impact (and the one scene in Mad Max that does use big special effects is, by a significant margin, the film's least engaging action sequence). There is a believable, brutal physicality to Fury Road that, when combined with impressive choreography and clean camerawork, makes for a terribly exciting, intense viewing experience. And believe it or not, that motorcycle chase is pretty sedate compared to the absolutely nuts action in the last act. Once our heroes are assaulted by a whole horde of lunatics in a caravan that is like a cross between an apocalyptic Cirque du Soleil and a metal concert on wheels, things get really crazy, but all the madness is executed with the same clarity and perfect timing.


The story is simple but engrossing. The lizard-eater of the opening sequence is Max, a hardened survivalist haunted by guilt. He is captured and taken to The Citadel, a community governed by the tyrannical Immortan Joe, who keeps the populace under control by creating a violent death cult in which he is the central figure. Max is used as a "blood bag" for Nux, one of Joe's War Boys, who are wasting away from the effects of radiation and need supplies of fresh blood to stay strong for battle. Here we meet the real protagonist of Fury Road - Imperator Furiosa, a former slave who drives the massive War Rig for Joe and his army. She deviates from her latest mission, escaping in the War Rig with five of Joe's concubines, or "breeders". Max and even the War Boy Nux become accomplices of Furiosa and the women - initially a hostile partnership borne of desperation, but mutual respect begins to grow in the ragtag group of escapees.

It's a basic story with a predictable arc, but set in a richly realized world of Miller's creation. Fury Road is the most immersive science fiction film I can recall since Children of Men nearly a decade ago. Like Children of Men, Fury Road never stops to explain to the audience the rules or history of its world - they are communicated through visual details, the language and customs of the characters. For all its outrageousness, the world of Fury Road feels lived-in and authentic, and holds relevance to ours. Immortan Joe's society is a religious cult that keeps the masses ignorant and does not tolerate any dissidents, that ensnares powerless young men by promising them glory in the afterlife if they die for their cause, and treats women as products to be controlled. That is hardly the stuff of fantasy - the Islamic State operates on largely the same principles.

The characters, too, are simple but drawn and performed with conviction. Tom Hardy's Max is gruff and near-silent - he grunts more than he speaks - but his development from a crazed survivalist to a man with actual concern for other lives is quietly moving. The women who escape with Furiosa have striking individual personalities, with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's Splendid Angharad, who is clearly the brave natural leader of the group, the quirky, eerie Dag (played by Abbey Lee), and the kindhearted Capable (Riley Keough) being particular standouts. Nicholas Hoult is brilliant as Nux, the initially scary-funny brainwashed War Boy who becomes brutally disillusioned of the Immortan Joe cult, and turns sympathetic as we realize he is, in a different way, as much an innocent victim as the women. But best in show is undeniably Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa. Like Max, Furiosa doesn't speak much, but we understand all we need to through Theron's eyes - her grit and courage, her genuine care for her young stowaways, her quiet self-loathing and seething fury. Furiosa is a terrific character, played with subtlety and soul by Theron - an actress who is sometimes cast based on her blonde goddess beauty but actually excels when playing difficult, spiky characters. She's an action heroine comparable to the great Sigourney Weaver in Aliens.

Also like Aliens, Mad Max: Fury Road is an intense action masterpiece elevated by surprising tenderness. Because for all the carnage and grotesquerie on display, Mad Max: Fury Road is actually hopeful. I grew to care for this band of heroes and their fight for dignity in a mad world that robbed them of sanity and humanity. The acts of redemption and sacrifice at the film's end are sincerely heartfelt. Perhaps the most impressive accomplishment of Fury Road is its affirmation that subtlety and soul can co-exist with wild bombastic spectacle.

But if that doesn't interest you, the "wild bombastic spectacle" should be more than enough - there's even a giant truck carrying dreadlocked drummers and a warrior playing an electric guitar that's also a flamethrower, which is about the nerdiest, coolest thing I've ever seen.