Movie Review: "Mad Max: Fury Road" (George Miller, 2015)

FURIOUS GEORGE by Mo Shaunette

Above: Charlize Theron, on the run as Furiosa in Mr. Miller's new movie. Photo ©Warner Bros. Pictures

“Mad Max” is one of those odd cult franchises that both rocketed its director to fame allowed said director to craft and develop their own style (similar to Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” trilogy or Edgar Wright’s sitcom “Spaced”).  Now, with nostalgia properties in vogue, it’s no surprise that “Max” has returned to cinemas; what is surprising is that original series creator George Miller has returned to write and direct thirty years after the last film.  And the biggest twist of all?  Just how god-dang GOOD “Mad Max: Fury Road” has turned out to be.

“Fury Road” returns us to Mr. Miller’s post-apocalyptic Australia, where a worldwide oil shortage has led to the collapse of civilization and the rise of marauders who rule their domains with homemade body armor and tricked-out cars.  Former cop Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy, taking over for Mel Gibson) is captured by one such band; they take him to their citadel on the same day their leader, the cultish Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), dispatches a convoy led by Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to retrieve gas from a neighboring settlement.  However, Furiosa is smuggling some precious “cargo”: Joe’s harem of breeder wives, who she’s transporting to a utopian region known only as “the Green Place.”

Thus begins a chase across wastelands, with Immortan Joe-worshipper Nux (Nicholas Hoult) dragging Max along for a steady supply of type-O blood.  It’s an adventure that yields some solid acting.  Mr. Hardy plays a livelier, more enthused Max than Mr. Gibson did and Ms. Theron anchors the film with righteous fury and genuine compassion.  By contrast, Mr. Keays-Byrne isn’t quite as lively as he way in the first “Max” movie (in which he played the evil “Toecutter”), but he still makes Immortan Joe a menacing presence.  Nicholas Hoult has a slightly showier role as Nux, but he makes the most of it, bringing empathy and fun that harkens back to great series hams like Bruce Spence and Vernon Wells.

Still, the real star of the show is George Miller.  “Fury Road” is essentially one long chase sequence, with Furiosa’s war rig ceaselessly pursued and viciously engaged by Joe’s ever-encroaching army.  It’s a journey driven by its visual style—the colors are vibrant (with the orange of the limitless desert providing a nice counterbalance to the black of the cars and the white body paint of Joe’s War Boys) and the fighting is brutally intense, suggesting that Mr. Miller was desperate to outdo the climactic chase from “The Road Warrior” (spoiler alert: he succeeds).  What’s more, weird visuals fly by with little-to-no explanation.  But this is hardly problematic.  Questions such as, “Why does Joe’s army include a flame-throwing heavy metal guitarist?” should be answered thusly: because it’s cool, that’s why!

That said, cool is only half of it.  “Fury Road” also happens to be a feminist movie, which is partly why the film has been attacked by the men's rights activist blogger Aaron Clarey, who declared that Hollywood suckered audiences and turned a “guy movie” into a “feminist lecture.”  I won’t link Mr. Clarey’s article here, not only because I think that people who say such things are best left ignored and laughed at, but because I think that the feminism of “Fury Road” is one of its greatest attributes.

Why?  Because there’s something beautiful not only about Furiosa’s fight to rescue Joe’s wives from servitude and slavery, but the wives’ spirit of defiance.  Their mantra (“We are not things!”) is not only plastered on the walls of their home, but spat directly at Joe when he claims the unborn child of Angharad (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) as his property.  This is evidence of the input of Eve Ensler (the feminist writer and activist who Mr. Miller consulted on the subject of sex slavery and its survivors) and the reason why “Fury Road” transforms into something wholly unexpected—an action movie about young women reclaiming their personhood and agency.

In a genre that’s almost completely dominated by men, that’s a welcome change of pace. Yet I don’t think “Fury Road” is perfect. To their detriment, the “Mad Max” movies have often relegated story and character development to the back seat, while shoving spectacle gleefully into the front.  And while “Fury Road” does have engaging characters, its focus remains on its near-endless car chases, many of which toe the line of going on too long.  True, Mr. Miller doesn’t egregiously misuse screen time the way Peter Jackson did with his “Hobbit” movies, but viewers with less patience for fast cars and dusty explosions may find themselves getting antsy.

Still, “Mad Max: Fury Road” is a triumph—a rip-roaring rampage that acts as a vehicle (no pun intended) for its director, his crew, and his cast to show off what they can do.  It’s an absolute ball and probably the best action movie you’ll see this year.  Check it out.