Wick's Review

Summary - Great 4.0

George Miller reboots Mad Max for a new generation with Fury Road. Tom Hardy ably replaces Mel Gibson, while Charlize Theron shepherds five wives through hell, adding a woman’s touch to what remains an absurdly masculine movie. The result is an exhilarating – albeit ridiculous – entertainment experience.

The movie is one long chase scene, an operatic, absurd, heavy-metal chase scene through a forbidding landscape. Basically it’s a post-apocalyptic scream-dream. More wearing than exhilarating after a while, it feels somewhat repetitive over the course of 2 full hours. However, it is a bravura cinematic achievement.

It could have been titled after Theron’s character, who looms larger in the movie than does Hardy’s Max. She’s more interesting than him, that’s for sure. However Imperator Furiosa is probably too long a title, and one that wouldn’t get Mad Max fanboys into theaters. Pity that old habits die hard.

Acting - Very Good 3.5

Charlize Theron carries the movie as a warlord’s lieutenant gone rogue. She’s more than up for the role, even if she’s hardly inimitable in it.

Tom Hardy has nary a handful of lines as the title character. Thus it’s a role that exploits Hardy’s Stallone-like physicality. He doesn’t disappoint, albeit it’s not career-defining for him like it was for Mel Gibson.

Supporters from the large cast:

• Nicholas Hoult is damn near unrecognizable as a crazed soldier in a warlord’s ragtag army.
• Hugh Keays-Byrne is suitably malevalent as the cult-leader / warlord. Keays-Byrne was also in the original Mad Max all those years ago.
• The Five Wives: Zoë Kravitz, Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough (Elvis Presley’s granddaughter), Abbey Lee & Courtney Eaton
• IOTA as the heavy-metal guitarist / hood ornament: the real Slash?

Film - Great 4.0

Sometimes a chase film is just a chase film, even if George Miller stuffs his with trendy references to ecological collapse and other end-of-days notions popular with the apocalyptic Left. That said, his inclusion of madonna-like characters as a central plot device was inspired.

Edge - Risqué 2.3

Reality - Supernatural 3.2

The combination of finely tuned machinery operating in a dusty wasteland, gas guzzling vehicles in a place where gasoline is hard to come by, and insane individuals everywhere is circumstantially ridiculous to the point of being supernatural. Ditto for portable human blood donors strapped to the front of vehicles.

1 Comment

• Wick Sep 7, 2015 7:48PM

  Regarding BrianSez’s Review
  No apologies needed. I gave it a Great, but still felt it was overhyped. So I suspect your Good will prove to be the consensus in the fullness of time.

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