Worth the Wait All This Time

Rating: 10/10 (19 May 2015)

If you're reading this, you should stop right now and go see Mad Max: Fury Road...and if you've already seen it, go ahead and see it again. Sure, there isn't much for character development or much by way of story, at least not the conventional variety that movies usually contain...but it was still there, just a bit differently conveyed and with a strange sort of (I'm loathe to use the word in reference to this movie, simply because it sounds absurd)...subtlety. The plot is propelled in a very visceral way, with the explosive momentum of the action itself as the vessel...and good lord was that intense.
This movie took the tension and action from Max Max, The Road Warrior, and Beyond Thunderdome, rolled it all into one beautifully executed package, and made it far more epic than the previous films could have been. This was the movie I spent more than a decade waiting on, from the first time George Miller began discussing his plans for Fury Road (only to have it put on what appeared, at the time, to be a permanent hiatus), and it was worth the wait. As much as I wanted to see Mel Gibson reprise his role, Tom Hardy handled it with the sort of professional capability that made it easy to deal with while experiencing the final product. Hell, there were even scenes where he was almost indistinguishable in the role from Road Warrior era Gibson. Charlize Theron was fantastic in what amounted to the leading role of the movie, but Theron being great comes as no surprise to anyone, I would imagine. She always is. Of course, we can't forget the absolute perfection of continuing the Farscape correlation, at least those of us who were fans of Farscape. Melissa Jaffer (who played Utu-Noranti Pralatong) plays Keeper of the Seeds in Fury Road just as Virginia Hey (who played Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan) portrayed "Warrior Woman" in The Road Warrior.
And then there's also the fact that Hugh Keays-Byrne (who played Toecutter in Mad Max) once again portrayed Max's major antagonist by portraying Immortan Joe in Fury Road.
Little things like that really do make me happy.
I'm not going to deny that there are probably numerous flaws with the movie beyond the miniscule ones that I noticed, but I couldn't conceivably care less...the whole was strong enough to compensate for any shortcomings in the components. Admittedly, I'm a Mad Max fanboy. I'm one of those people who sincerely feels that original trilogy of films stands just as strong as movies like The Terminator, and the other movies from the same time period that are considered to be classics by many. My opinion is, of course, a bit biased in that respect...but not that biased.
It was fun, it was intense, it was jaw-droppingly spectacular where the effects were concerned, the cinematography was actually beautiful in a lot of respects, the acting was solid and consistent throughout, and Miller's directing was superb. This one is worth seeing on the big screen, as many times as you can manage it, in 3D if you can manage it (it takes advantage of the 3D better than a lot of movies do).
So, get going!