Review – Mad Max : Fury Road

Mad Max: Fury Road a sensory overload

mm1In a time where leading women are pushing the envelope to gain recognition for their part in the film industry, Mad Max secretly gives women that envelope.

George Miller’s fourth instalment of the Mad Max series comes Mad Max: Fury Road. The film is a sensory overload of post-apocalyptic madness that has been building up over 45 years with the fall of civilisation.

King Immorton Joe has set a team to collect gasoline with the War-Rig driven by Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) a bionic armed, shaved headed female who has an entirely different plan for the journey.

It has been 30 years since the last Mad Max film was released, so you would be excused if you had forgotten much about the previous three. However, the production team have very nicely tackled the fine art of sharing enough information for the new Mad Max generation. And for those that watched in awe back in the early 80s there was just enough information to remember where things left off.

The film has captured that amazing balance to tickle the imagination of everyone around the world. The simple mm2and vast dialogue was perfectly balanced to not take away from the epic highly perfected battle scenes. Executed to the point that you would forget you were actually watching a movie.

Complementing that worldly feel is the direction of the accents in the film. Nothing is set, English, Australian, and American. Tom Hardy has an attempt at all three at some point throughout the film. Nailing a Mel Gibson accent in the opening scenes, touching a little Batman’s Bain in the middle and ending in a 007 James Bondesque accent that’ll make you swoon.

Charlize Theron takes charge in this film and absolutely nails it. She portrays this lost woman who has strong hopes to make the world better again. One look at her eyes and you seem to know her every pain and every joy.

And while Tom Hardy is one of those actors who will easily throw himself head first into a role, Theron overshadows his outstanding performance.

And it’s for that reason you realise this isn’t a film about Max, this is a film about a woman who is taking on the men in this crazy world. In doing so helping the other women in the movie to do the same.

mm3Mad Max is an Australian classic, but for any Australian watching this film you realise Fury Road isn’t Australian any more. Sure George Miller did his best to keep the cast for the most part Australian. But there is no way an Australian would see the landscape as their backyard.

But that’s not to Miller’s fault. They started filming in outback NSW in 2009. But with freak rains the otherwise baron dessert was thrown into a green beauty not seen for decades. This moved the production to southern Africa.

The film doesn’t stroll around the deserts touching on as many stories as you can in two hours. It’s a straightforward battle between good and evil though I’m sure if someone actually sat Immorton Joe down for a chat you’d realise he thinks he’s doing the right thing.

And thrown in for good measure is the usual love story. Forbidden love and love from uncertainty.

For such an epic film, there aren’t too many points where you question the visual effects team. For the most part you’d think they actually was an explosion.

The clarity and colours of the film is epic. It seemed that everyone has eyes that glow and radiate. Not to mention the stunning landscape as desolate as it is was full of colour and definition.

Overall the film is visually delicious with vibrant colours and attention to detail to transport you to the Mad Max world. The ideas and creativity of the director, George Miller is to perfection. And just to show how he is either genius or completely mad, Miller is the Director of Happy Feet, a children’s movie about singing and dancing penguins.

This film is easily a nod to Mad Max films past and a welcome to the Mad Max future.

Review by Jason Cook

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