Locke 2: Fury Road

Rating: 7/10 (15 September 2015)

This film took director George Miller 12 years to make, and it shows. There is a great deal of depth to this fictional post-apocalypse world. Here the same back story is depicted, with a larger and more ferocious telling. I expect this film will greatly influence future action movies, primarily because the elements of this action film are so fresh and unique. Director George Miller should especially be recognised for getting performances that get the character's emotions without much dialogue. Much needs to be said about the action cutting of this film. First, there is little or no "shaky cam". For me, the ferocity of the pacing for an extended action sequence seemed almost impossible, yet it kept my adrenaline going. I'm not sure how many edits are in this film, but it feels about twice as many as a normal action film, yet it doesn't suffer from Michael Bay syndrome (addicted to quick cuts).
George Miller has created a 'look' to his Mad Max films by undercranking the camera. This means instead of playing back at 24 frames per second, the motion is sped up so there is perhaps 26 fps passing by within a second. Next, is starting the story as the chase begins, giving the character momentum. How to make an original action film? Spend months designing and building wild vehicles previously only seen as bubble gum stickers I used to collect as a kid. The personality designed into the cars and trucks rivals some of the actors. There was an interesting shifting of the weight of the story to the supporting characters, allowing the main characters to go through most of the movie without any dialogue. It is a bit of irony for Tom Hardy to have so little dialogue while spending the entire movie in a traveling vehicle. Around the time of the release of Mad Max was "Locke", in which he spends the entire movie talking while in a moving vehicle. Charlize Theron needs no backstory to understand she is tough.
A lot of good adrenaline inducing tribal drums punctuate the soundtrack. One of the chase vehicles has six drummers bashing away while a fire wielding heavy metal guitar player assaults the sonic landscape. No other film this summer has this kind of well paced action with original visuals.