An Action Masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (18 May 2015)

THE GOOD:
Out of all the 263 titles that I have rated on my IMDb page, only 8 of them have earned themselves a 10/10 rating from me. Those movies are (in no particular order): The Matrix, Back to the Future, Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (My #1), The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Cloud Atlas, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. "But Jovan ol' jolly ol' chum, why do you say this?" Because, my beautiful amigos, I have a 9th to add to that list. I really didn't think that this film would reach such a status. You guessed it, folks.
Mad Max: Fury Road is a masterpiece of cinema.
I honestly cannot believe it myself. I am still speechless when I talk about it. I don't know what to say first, I can't even begin to describe what I even watched. Now that I can actually write my review and elaborate on what needed to be elaborated on, I can finally put my thoughts to words. Not only is this probably movie of the year (Star Wars is a top contender) but it could be movie of the decade! The action was mindblowingly awesome! And the best part about it is that most of the stunts were practical! As a film guy, I always appreciate anything done in practical form (also awards bonus points) but for what I saw, it was almost hard to believe that the stunts that were practical, WERE PRACTICAL. Of course there was CGI when it really called for it, but if things could be done practically, they were done so. George Miller is around 70 years old and he puts the WHOLE ENTIRE Fast & Furious films to shame with these stunts! Everything was also shot excellently, and I must add that Fury Road continues to prove that there is no need for shaky cam WHATSOEVER to create a MEGA-AWESOME, PULSE-POUNDING action scene (unlike Bayformers). Of course when the action stops, there needs to be dialogue and character development to further the plot, and the characters were terrific! Not a single hollow character was seen in this film, every character, main and supporting, protagonist and antagonist, had at least one bad-ass moment. Nobody was neglected for a SECOND. I also must start talking about the new spotlight character, Furiosa played by Charlize Theron. She stole a lot of scenes from Max but I had no complaints whatsoever because she was one of the coolest heroines in a film to date (Ripley from Alien is still #1).
This films visuals are some of the coolest, most bad-ass, most grotesque in any film to date. Character designs were excellent, top notch, and definitely Mad Max worthy! And the car designs, OH MY GOODNESS THE CAR DESIGNS, are the coolest to date. Nothing beats these cars, not even a fully pimped out, fully-upgraded-anything car in any video game can beat the designs in Fury Road (Unless the Mad Max game coming later this year can rival them). I mean, there's a literal stage on wheels fully rigged out with speakers with one guy on a custom electric guitar that can shoot flames out of its neck! HOW MUCH MORE METAL CAN YOU GET?! The soundtrack I almost forgot to mention but now that I've been reminded I cannot get it out of my head. The soundtrack is also fantastic! It's composed by Junkie XL and he did a fantastic job capturing the pulse-pounding action of Fury Road.
The pacing was great, sound design was excellent, trailers were some of the best in a long time and I LOVE THIS GODDAMN MOVIE.
At this point I'm just gonna start rambling. So onto...
THE BAD:
No film is perfect as many of you may know and there probably never will be a perfect movie with ZERO faults. My main concern is Tom Hardy's portrayal of the Mad Max character. I don't know if he was trying to pull off an Aussie accent, but at some parts I could feel a Bane-ey tone coming from him, thankfully, this wasn't consistent. I'm actually happy with Tom's Mad Max, but he could've done better, A LOT better. Mel Gibson still stands as the OG and best Mad Max there will ever be. Speaking of Aussie accents, I am happy to at least hear more than 10 characters speak in the 'straya tongue, but the mains like Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult should've at least try to go for an Aussie accent. I really hope that this can be addressed because we're in the Aussie outback for Christ's sake.
THE CONCLUSION:
Mad Mad: Fury Road is now marked as the best sequel and return to form of any franchise ever and it more than deserves this 10/10 that it gets. I saw this film in IMAX and I cannot recommend enough that you go see it there too. The movie was MADE for 3D.