[vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Minor Spoilers Ahead.
PLOT: In a post-apocalypic world, a lone road warrior, Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy), teams up with a fleeing band of slaves, and their protector, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), to make it across the wasteland in order to find salvation.
REVIEW: Mad Max: Fury Road is pure cinema, confident, un-apolagetic, and is one of the most spectacular films released in years.
I can’t remember the last time I stepped into a theatre only to be so easily and so quickly transported and immersed in another world.
Fury Road makes the action in Avengers: Age of Ultron look like child’s play.
Here, it’s not towering cities of CGI crumbling before our very eyes that astonishes us. It’s the thousand little things that happen amidst the insanity of practically shot action sequences. Its discovering an arrow has been shot not just through Max’s hand, but into his forehead as well. It’s an innocent girl being pulled out of a moving vehicle by her captors. Its an armed warrior leaping from the top of a truck onto a small spiked car at 100 mph.
There is something reckless about the filmmaking. Something dangerous. Something primal.
And yet the madness is oh so very controlled and calculated through the mind of visionary director, George Miller.
To take this as simply a soulless action film is to underestimate it entirely.
Juxtaposed against those moments of craziness…
The war-torn eyes of sadness on an elderly female warrior who gave up all hope years ago. Greenery on a mountaintop, the closest anyone will come to salvation, and yet it’s so far out of our grasp, no one could possibly reach it.
And there’s Imperator Furiosa.
The film is told, really, through her eyes, with Max serving as more of a guardian angel of sorts. Her story is the journey, our reason for watching. This is a two hour fight for Furiosa’s freedom, and those of the slave girls she has rescued and is taking across the wasteland. The themes are so simple, and yet, so rich. Hers is a struggle against oppression, against a society so warped, so corrupted. It would have been easy for her soul to have been lost forever, to have given up without so much as taking a breath of free air. And yet, she feels strong enough, compelled enough, brave enough, to be one singular individual against all odds who feels she can make a difference. The odds are so overwhelmingly against her. She even has a physical impairment. And yet, she goes after it.
Charlize Theron takes her inspiration from Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of Ellen Ripley in Aliens. She is able to show both strength and vulnerability in the blink of an eye. But to trivialize the character as a mere copy is unfair to Theron, who has made Furiosa her own, and one of the greatest action heroes of today’s generation.
In a way, Max gets lost in Furiosa’s story, as he is intended to be.
I love what Miller has done with the character of Max. He is not unlike a more traditional form of superhero. Today, as we see with The Avengers, our heroes are on screen in costume for most of the movie. Thor is Thor, whether he is summoning the power of the gods, or eating shawarma.
Back in the day, a city would be overrun by crazy carnival minions, and just when it seemed like things couldn’t get any worse, out of nowhere Michael Keaton’s Batman would appear to shift the odds.
Max is just that. When fate is hanging in the balance, Max overcomes the odds, summons that extra charge, and gets out there and kicks some serious ass.
He also gets his ass kicked along the way, which gives him that Indiana Jones reluctant hero persona.
Indiana Jones never really wants to hurt anyone. He is a professor of archaeology, afterall. And yet, when he finds himself in a pit of hell being forced to drink the blood of Kali surrounded by enslaved children, even Indy says, “Okay, enough is enough,” and punches his way out of there.
Here, Max just wants to be left alone, to battle the demons of his past that haunt him, to mourn the loss he suffered long ago. Yet, when Max finds himself in the middle of a battle between right and wrong, and when he knows he can make a difference, eventually, like Indy, he knows when it’s time to take a stand.
The action stunts in this film are breathtaking and will leave your jaw dropped on the floor.
The visual world Miller has painted is stunning.
And yet, there is an undeniable soul to this movie.
Make no mistake. This is a disturbing piece of cinema. This movie is not for the faint of heart. This is one of the craziest cinematic roller coaster rides you could go on.
But it’s oh so rewarding.
Just as I feel when I step off of X2 at Six Flags Magic Mountain, coming out of Mad Max: Fury Road, I felt like I conquered something. I felt energized. Inspired.
This is a great movie.
GRADE: A+[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]