★★★★

Rating: 10/10 (19 January 2016)

Mad Max: Fury Road is a genre film of the highest order, one that torpedoes through its genre conventions in an eruption of smoke and rust and would sooner perish than take a moment to dust off its shoulders. It is a film drenched in gasoline and liquid anarchy, splurting flames out of its umpteen exhaust pipes and rumbling so deeply the back of your skull starts itching. Director George Miller, who also directed the past three Mad Max films, released his last entry "Thunderdome" three decades ago, and this one seems to have bathed (or scorched) in the vivid gleam of his wildest fantasies for every minute of them.
While Thunderdome has since garnered a reputation for being the worst entry in the series – my thoughts being the exact inverse – Fury Road brings a previously unknown dimension in modern technique to its proceedings that adds to the effect in ways that would never have been possible back in the franchise's time. Miller's latest is an unceasing succession of sensational action sequences– a visceral circus act that isn't content with simply juggling chainsaws; they must be ablaze, while it walks a tightrope that is also ablaze.
Max Rockatansky, who we've come to know as Mel Gibson's post- apocalypse persona, is recast as Tom Hardy, whose formidable presence has not been lost upon the chaos and the Madness of the world around him. He is a man haunted by his past trespasses and hunted by whoever is within proximity. This world, brought to a wastelandic extreme we've yet to see from this series, is ruled in part by a tyrannical dictator by the name of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), a creature whose mask can only remind viewers of Hardy's previous role as Bane in "DKR". His cult is in possession of a spectacular array of vehicles that make for chase scenes that set out to overwhelm and succeed.
Joe and his army are in pursuit of Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a female warrior of Joe's who sets out to escape his wrath with his Five Wives in tow. Here is where the film's feminist undercurrent is rooted, in the developments of these women who have none but themselves to look towards in the midst of mayhem. In the previous films, the mere presence of a woman on-screen has been sufficient cause for unease, the promise of death or worse perpetually shimmering on the horizon, drawing ever near with each passing moment. That raw fear has since driven these women to adopt a fierce will to survive while shielding their perceived delicacy from the cruel outside. They are powerful but nonetheless fragile, beautiful but capable; an oasis of purity in what is very much a man's world.
Among those pursuing them is a War Boy named Nux (Nicholas Hoult), a blindly devoted member of Joe's army who is also Max's captor. He employs him as a "blood bag" and a living masthead of sorts for his vehicle. Nux serves his master with a raging loyalty and a belief that his efforts will secure him a place in Valhalla alongside the best of them. They follow the pack into battle, and from this point forward, the film sets a cinderblock upon the gas pedal and hunches over the steering wheel, crazed and with black rings around its eyes. The entire film is in essence one long chase, ebbing and flowing, constantly involving, and always aware of its surroundings. The chase scenes in Fury Road aren't simply a means to a cheap thrill; they explore all that is possible within the boundaries of their convention. They have spatial awareness, making full use of the depth of space around the vehicles. An explosion isn't something that just happens for the sake of an explosion; you see where it is in relation to everything else, how it affects the surroundings, whether it changes the state of play. The cars don't simply inhabit the desert environment; they are integrated into it, which means the stunts are allowed to be as fluid and elegant as those you would expect to see in a Jackie Chan movie.
It's gratifying to watch Miller's supercharged imagination run wild across the screen. The characters are all either desperate for purpose or starved of reason. With bodies painted white and faces in various stages of embellishment or disfigurement. They howl, they pant – you'd swear they guzzle octane like OJ. The vehicles are all tattered assemblies of the remnants of our society, tricked out in various ways that suggest a Transformer's rendition of "Frankenstein". The set pieces are monuments of modern filmmaking. The initial chase involves a storm, which is all I'm willing to divulge, as I can neither bear spoiling the scene any further nor ever come close to doing it justice. And then the movie tops it with each new sequence. The canvas is saturated with colors that would be too rich for a desert wasteland but for the vision of its artisan.
Max, one who for the most part faces his inner demons in anguished silence, seems to take the passenger-seat to Furiosa, who is a force to be reckoned with, as beautiful as she is unrelenting. Her black- sheen brow, shaved head, and mechanical arm all tell stories about her before she utters a word. Applause is also due towards the wives, who escape from the citadel in search of a better world that may not be and never have been. They ground the events in a sense of urgency, a realism brought about by the conviction in fighting for a cause which keeps the film from mushrooming into a 2-hour blowout of unchecked excess and insanity. Well... completely.
I just about enjoyed every minute of Fury Road; in a phrase, it was exhilarating. In another, it is one of the year's best films. This isn't a reboot of a classic franchise, or even a proper sequel; it's an evolution.