Should Have Been Called Mad Maxine: Fury Road

Rating: 8/10 (17 May 2015)

Mad Max: Fury Road is an excellent action movie. It's visceral, beautifully shot, and has a heart-pounding soundtrack that perfectly matches the off-the-wall action on screen. It is not a great Mad Max movie, however, despite all the high scores it's received from critics and fans alike. In fact, I think it's overrated. Leave it to me to be the one who picks it apart--I have no allegiance to the Mad Max franchise or advertisers.
Fury Road starts with a flashback accompanied by voice-over from Max (Tom Hardy) as he provides a quick rundown of his haunted past and the post-apocalyptic world that he lives in. Water and resources are scarce. The world is a desert wasteland filled with packs of psychopathic bandits running rampant in supercharged custom-built muscle cars and buggies. If you've seen the previous Mad Max films or played any of the Fallout or Borderlands games, you've got the idea.
At the center of this wasteland is the Citadel, the kingdom of skull-faced warlord Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), which runs like a well-oiled machine of human slavery powered by Joe's cannon fodder minions, the pale "War Boys", who are indoctrinated to believe that the greatest glory is to die on the fury road and meet Joe in Valhalla.
After a caravan led by Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), one of the fiercest warriors in Joe's legion, embarks from the Citadel on a seemingly routine mission, Max and War Boy Nux (Nicholas Hoult) join forces with Furiosa as she attempts a rebellious plot to flee with Joe's five wives and escort them to safety to her childhood home known as the "Green Place".
Of course, this plot enrages Joe, and he immediately calls his banners to take down Furiosa and recapture his wives. The rest of the movie is basically a huge chase scene, as we watch Max, Furiosa, and company traverse the wasteland in pursuit by Joe and his thugs.
So, what are the problems with this movie that I alluded to above? The main issue lies with Tom Hardy, and the second is with the action-to-story ratio.
I am personally a big fan of Tom Hardy, but he is honestly characterless in this movie and lacks charisma. Yes, he was written to be a man of few words, a true strong silent type, but I never believed that he was this legendary hero named Mad Max. Sure, Tom handles the action fine, but there is nothing noteworthy about his performance.
Furthermore, he lacks chemistry with Charlize Theron, which is not surprising, considering the two stars apparently had major problems on set. I'm not sure if this was Tom Hardy's fault or George Miller's (the writer/director), but overall I found his performance to be underwhelming, as he mumbles his lines in an unintelligible non-Australian accent and comes off as a mindless brute, not a good guy who used to be a cop and had a family, but resorted to violence because it was necessary, like Mel Gibson's portrayal in the previous Mad Max movies.
To put it simply, this movie may have taken place in the Mad Max universe, but Mad Max never showed up.
However, despite my problems with Tom Hardy's performance, I have the exact opposite opinion of Charlize Theron's. I thought she was excellent as Furiosa, a skilled and strong-willed woman with just enough vulnerability to make her human and not just a man in a woman's body. She is the real star of the movie, and Max is just kind of there to fight bad guys. He has no real purpose or motivation.
Also, Nicholas Hoult's performance as Nux is excellent, and he is the only one who has any real character development, as he transitions from being another countless minion to a man with a soul.
My second issue with the movie is the lack of background story for newcomers. You're never given much context to understand the motivations of the characters and what is going in the world. You're basically just thrown in and expected to go along for the ride, which makes it difficult to care about anything other than Furiosa and Nux's arcs, the only interesting characters in the movie.
Pros:
-Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult's performances are excellent.
-The visual effects and music are great.
-The character development occurs through action rather than words, which is refreshing.
Cons:
-Tom Hardy's portrayal of Max is flat and underwhelming, and he lacks chemistry with Charlize Theron.
-There isn't enough background story and context to give the story much gravitas, thus there isn't much to care about other than Furiosa and Nux's arcs.
-A lot of the lines are inaudible.
-While the action is well done, it becomes excessive.
-The violence is PG-13. For all the killing going on, you never really see any blood or gore, which lessens the impact.
So with all this said, do I recommend Fury Road? Yeah, absolutely. It's a damn good action movie, highly entertaining, but if you're looking for another Mad Max movie, this isn't really it. If it was called Mad Maxine: Fury Road, that would have been a lot more accurate.
People are giving this movie 9's and 10's on IMDb, and it's now #25 on the IMDb Top 250 list, right under The Silence of the Lambs, The Usual Suspects, and Se7en. If you're seriously telling me this movie is as good as those classics, then I think you're crazy. Fury Road is fun, but it has nothing on those movies, which are all Oscar winners and nominees. I give it an 8/10.
Lastly, I saw it in 3D, and I don't recommend it. See it in 2D instead.