Marval Movie

Mad Max Fury Road is a movie that appeals to the eyes and ears of its movie viewers. This is something that looks unimpressed on the traditional action movies and pumps everything up ten more points. It turns down anything that could be quite or slow and revels in its own crazy world and visuals.

It opens on a dry, sandy post-apocalyptic world. Standing in the desert is a loner named Max (Tom Hardy) that recounts through voice-over, of the people he let down and is haunted by them. Then bandits come and take him prisoner as a slave for their dystopian empire. While he is being held captive one driver named Furiosa (Charlize Theron) is leaving but she has taken something that belongs to the overlord, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). One of Joe's drivers Nux (Nicholas Holt) has an idea to strap Max to the top of his car as a human shield. Thus the pursuit begins. This isn't exactly a plot, more of an excuse for spectacle. But what a spectacle that we are shown. Just when I thought I'd been around the block of action scenes this movie comes along and shows me something new.

The visuals on-screen are like the artwork of a heavy metal album cover come to life. This is a world of vast yellow dunes, rusted cars that have been pieced together by suicidal maniacs, colorful smoke, and flames.

As was explained in Whiplash, having a good, impressive momentum is one thing. What distinguishes the simply OK from the exceptional is maintaining the momentum. Fury Road has about three moments of slow, exposition scenes, then the rest is action and maintaining the fire-breathing velocity of these set pieces. They continue to escalate and throw another brilliant layer on-top of what was already intense action.

Max himself is a character of few words. He speaks when he needs to and when he does they are only the minimal required. Tom Hardy also speaks his words with some kind of unidentifiable accent, at times it sounds Cockney next it was possibly gravely American. Maybe if he got to talk more he could have nailed down his accent?

This might be a factor of Max as a character having three movies in the past to serve as character development. So I suppose that there's little for George Miller and company to build upon. But I have never seen a Mad Max movie until now, so anything that could be referencing the older movies or his previous trials and tribulations go by and all I see is a silent tough man that has good intentions.

This movie has a surprising amount of women. Usually, these types of movies are a total boys club, but here they are, women being very active and engaging within the action and by no means playing the role of damsel in distress. Also commendable is that the filmmakers do this without blinking, no comments like "but your a girl" or "this is no place for a woman."

Odd that one of the least developed, as well as the character that is most in distress, is Max himself. Now having a character that isn't perfect and has challenges to overcome isn't by any stretch a bad thing, in fact, that is the cornerstone for an engaging character but it is odd that the title character in an action movie is in this situation.

This is not a deep thinkers movie, no this is a roller-coaster of a movie. Where you admire the craft and flare that has gone into making it. Simply soak up the image on-screen, throw your hands in the air and scream along with all the characters for this immense ride.

Rating: 4 stars out of 4