Great Action! Characters Lacking

Rating: 7/10 (28 May 2015)

The action is spectacular! The cinematography is gorgeous!
But, the characters are too flat. That mainly is the fault of the writing. Plus, Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron are pretty subdued throughout. I know that Mel Gibson has had his problems. But, his electric presence would have been better than what Hardy does. It's one of those things where, it doesn't matter if Max is supposed to be two decades younger than Gibson is now, they should have still had Gibson in the lead.
It becomes tough to care about most of the characters, for the most part, except for Nicholas Hoult as Nux, one of the villain's drivers. He, at least, has a story to tell, and it is more interesting than everyone else's.
The villain is Immortan Joe, played by no one other than Hugh Keays-Byrne. Don't recognize him with the whole mask and getup here? He was the lead villain in the original "Mad Max." Yes, The Toecutter himself! It's super cool that he's back as another villain here, but he's unrecognizable, which cuts down the impact.
The film score is by Tom Holkenborg, a.k.a. Junkie XL. He does have some good moments here, especially some ethereal synth-driven moments, along with percussion-driven ones. But, the rest of it is fairly straight-forward action-movie stuff. Of course, probably nothing could come close to Brian May's first two "Mad Max" scores!
There are many fun touches here and there, mainly the guitar player guy, whose sole assignment is to play power chords while chained to the front of a massive vehicle that is basically a mammoth speaker stack!
Meanwhile, except for the main compound where the vast society lives, lorded over by Immortan Joe, there is little world building, even with a budget over 10 times what "Thunderdome" cost, and over 30 times what the far-superior "Road Warrior" cost.
Even though George Miller proves he is a much better director than whipper-snappers a third his age, the story is a bit too thin, and the characters don't have the emotional punch they could have had.
******* (7 Out of 10 Stars)