In the future, nuclear wars have rendered the world a barren
wasteland where fuel and water are scarce. Amid this backdrop, former police
officer “Mad” Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) wanders the desert haunted by the memories
of his dead loved ones. It isn’t long before Max is captured and put to use as
a forced blood donor for the War Boys of the Citadel, a massive colony run by
the tyrannical Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Meanwhile, one of Joe’s trusted
operatives, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), betrays him by attempting to
take his harem of child-bearing wives to freedom. As they flee Joe’s forces, her
journey and Max’s become intertwined.
In the three decades since the last Mad Max movie (the
disappointing Beyond the Thunderdome),
Mel Gibson aged out of the title role and director/series creator George Miller
faded largely into obscurity, emerging to direct family fare such as Happy Feet. Given these circumstances,
it’s a small miracle that a fourth Mad Max movie got made at all. It’s a
considerably larger miracle that a movie with a recast lead, a threadbare plot,
and minimal dialogue manages to be as successful as it is.
At first glance, Fury
Road appears to be the quintessential big, dumb action movie. There’s merit
to the charge: a good deal of the film is taken up by a car chase as Furiosa
steers a massive war rig away from myriad wheeled pursuers. However, this is an
action movie with style and heart. Visually, it takes its cues from The Road Warrior, but it turns the volume
way up. The cars are stacked, spiked, and armed to amusingly implausible
degrees. The War Boys are suicidal pale mutants, eager to huff chrome paint and
seek the glory of the afterlife. Joe himself (who shares an actor with but is
unrelated to the antagonist of the first Mad Max) is a scarred old man whose
respirator mask makes him look like the nightmare child of Bane and the Joker.
There are massive dust storms and creepy crows, guitars that shoot flames and
motocross grenadiers. Frequent Hans Zimmer collaborator Junkie XL provides a
score that lends operatic grandeur, and Miller’s preference for practical
effects means there is an absence of conspicuous CGI.
Despite this insanity, Fury Road is more than just the sum
of its explosions. There is some deft messaging at play here. The Citadel
evokes remerging old society: efficient, yes, but hierarchal and brutal. In
contrast, Furiosa’s mission – to live (and breed) safely and freely – smacks of
naïve idealism but one can hardly fault its noble intent. There is probably
much more to the mythology here, but so little is given on-screen (seriously,
don’t expect long monologues or expository speeches) that it places the actors
in the unenviable position of implying their characters’ backstories wholesale.
In the case of the two leads, they pull it off quite well. Hardy neither looks
nor sounds like Gibson, but the core of the character is still there: a
once-moral man who has lost much of his humanity through tragedy and violence.
Meanwhile, Theron is wholly believable as an iron-willed warrior determined to
atone for past wrongs (even if we don’t know what those wrongs are).
Unfortunately, the rest of the characters aren’t as compelling. Joe is a
one-dimensional ham in a scary mask, his wives get little in the way of
development, and War Boy defector Nux (Nicholas Hoult) plays too much like
comic relief to empathize with.
Bombastic, frenzied, and flat-out strange, Fury Road reads like Twisted Metal meets Fallout meets rock opera, but don’t let the packaging fool you:
there is enough substance here to sustain the crazy ride.
8.25/10
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