A Mad & Fury Blockbuster Worth The Hype

Rating: 10/10 (17 May 2015)

When a few years back, Australian director George Miller announced a new Mad Max film would be in the works but sadly it would have taken over 25 years for the project to fly off the development stages (as there was issues with production, locations and even script development over the years) but this year was the year audiences would finally see it on the screen in this final completed work. The question is for all fans was; would it be worth the wait all these years to happen, and would it be worthy as its original trilogy? The following summary below pretty much sums up the wait and anticipation had really paid off for both the fans and the filmmakers.
Fury Road is a worthy wild action ride that packs punch, value and high quality into the trilogy that was established previously, it can be considered both a reboot and a sequel but this enables Miller to expand the wasteland universe and to further the life of the 'Road Warrior' Max. Having seen the trilogy countless times, we are immediately aware of the production value it should carry, but with the film having the biggest budget to use (beating the trilogy's separate budget values), Miller crafts not only an epic film in action and storytelling, but in terms of value, concept and direction he gives us a shining feature that stands strongly and respectively for the fans of the franchise.
Casting in the film was great, in particular marks the first time that a different actor has filled in the shoes and duty of portraying Max and that actor was Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises, Lokie, Bronson and Inception). At the time when it was announced of his role, fans both agreed or disagreed with this casting choice as he was of British decent and it was Mel Gibson that defined the role as iconic for both him and the franchise. With Hardy, he gives a solid performance that makes us feel that Max has still strong after so many years past since Thunderdome, and pulls it off without no flaws that makes him solid like Gibson. Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron plays as Furiosa, a character that seems to take the leading action role as much as Hardy but there has been criticism from various anti-feminist groups that she is more dominate and more action-oriented than Hardy's character on screen and thus making fans feel that Max is a secondary character. From my perspective, this is a false fact as Max does play a major role throughout the story; as he's assisting with Furiosa's journey of redemption to bring the women into a safer world, without Max's assistance she may not have survived Joe's ambush and violent attacks to stop her.
The supporting cast includes the talents of Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: Days of Future Past, Warm Bodies), Hugh Keays-Byrne (From the original Mad Max), Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Nathan Jones and Megan Gale to name some, in which all play great performances in their roles. From my eye, Hoult makes homage to the Gyro Captain (from Mad Max 2) that's in the form of his wild boy character Nux while Byrne's Immortan Joe is dominate as the villain and bares the similar voice with Bane (played by Hardy ) with tension and pure bad buy quality (there's barely any bad dialogue from him or any of the characters).
In terms of action, Fury Road is indeed a major contender for action quality that matches not only the quality from the previous films but takes it further in terms of stunts, practical effects and choreography work. From explosive crashes, high-wired acrobats, jumping and moving along moving vehicles and fist fights on top of tankers, the film does it with amazing eye for detail and realism using practical effects and stunt people whilst using minimal CGI to assist the action or landscape. The fast and clear camera work and editing makes the action sequences seem so beautiful, brutal and flat out insane that it leaves the recent Fast and Furious films in the dirt and in shame.
Cinematography, sound mixing, editing and practical effects are all top notch throughout the film, Miller and his crew give the action, story, its characters and its deserted environment a style that has been missing from the genre for sometime (though a few today have occurred to be solid examples such as The Raid 2, Furious 7, Kingsman and even some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films) but Miller reignites both the genre and his style of filmmaking that make it seem possible for the film to get Oscar worthy consideration in 2016; which would be nominated for best cinematography, sound mixing/editing, visual effects and possibly direction. The amazing cars featured (including the signature Interceptor) are all real, detailed and seemed so based from the minds of Miller and his design team and it's a true fact that 350 vehicles were used in the film, but who knows how many of them were destroyed during the making of the film (I hope the future home entertainment release will feature a behind the scenes look into this and the production values).
OVERALL:
Mad Max: Fury Road is an epic action ride that delivers solid entertainment for both action fans and fans of the original trilogy, Miller has taken so many years to get this franchise back on the screen and the results we see are the best we've seen in filmmaking and the genre itself. This is perhaps my favourite film I've seen alongside Age of Ultron, CHAPPiE, Kingsman: The Secret Service and Birdman but this film stands at the first position and earns itself an 'Seal of Approval' for quality entertainment.