Masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (16 May 2015)

Mad Max: Fury Road is a Australian post-apocalyptic action film, starring Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron and Nicolas Hoult and is directed by George Miller.
This film is amazing! A true action film for the ages, and just like the trailers show, it's all action, it hardly slows down in its 2 hour running time, yet it also has a fun yet simple story, interesting characters and great world building.
In the stark desert wasteland populated by a broken humanity driven with survival and the unending ravage for gasoline, a loner named Max finds himself unwantedly caught in the middle of a chase while aiding the heroine Furiosa, and her female companions, she struggles to return to her homeland and escape the clutches of a ruthless dessert gang leader, Immortan Joe. With the harsh desert sands in front of them and marauders behind, only the maddest will prevail the storm.
I only just caught up with all of the previous Mad Max films and enjoyed them greatly, and i feel like this one fits right in with the previous ones. Tom Hardy has replaced Mel Gibson as "Mad" Max Rockatansky and he is just as good as Gibson, Hardy is an amazing actor and he doesn't have a lot to say in the film, like the older films, but his physical acting makes up for his lack of lines, you also understand his mental condition more in this film than previous ones which i thought was interesting, in the older films i didn't really think that Max was crazy but in this film Hardy proves that he is. Nicolas Hoult plays Nux, a warboy, who is on the antagonist's side of the fight in the film, i thought that Nux was a really interesting character because in the older Max films, we saw all of these insane tribesmen fighting and don't really understand these crazy characters, Nux lets us into that kind of mind-frame which i found fascinating, Hoult played him very well, and is unrecognizable in the role, not just because he shaved all the hair off his body, because this is a side of the actor we have never seen before, and he has the best line in the film which has become the tag line for the film "What a lovely day!" Saving the best character for last, Charlize Theron's Imperator Furiosa, by far the most bad-ass character in the film and one of the strongest female characters that has been put on the big screen in quite a while, like Hoult, Theron also shaves her head and sinks into her role as Furiosa, she is arguably the main character in the film, having the best lines, great action and emotional scenes. While Max is just along for the ride in this film Furiosa is taking charge, looking after people and trying to save them which was nice to see. I thought it was interesting that while Max is a big part of the film and the namesake of it, Miller decided it doesn't need to only be about him.
The side characters are also interesting, Immortan Joe's wives are all strong women which each have their own thing to do and feel like real characters instead of just plot points which was nice to see, the main antagonist Immortan Joe was also good, played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played Toecutter in the first Mad Max film, he was a intimidating, imposing character but not much more than that, we don't delve into his character like we do the others but i think that is okay because the film doesn't focus on him too much and knows that he isn't the most important thing in the film. The great thing about all of the side characters were their designs, they all looked so unique and interesting that they stood out even if they were not the most vital character, like Coma-Doof Warrior, who is a random character that plays a guitar that spouts fire and gets the enemy troops riled up, the character looks so cool that he is instantly a fan favourite.
Going back to the action scenes because that is the most important thing in the film, Director, George Miller does such a fantastic job of keeping all of the action scenes fun and exciting, the film is 2 hours long and i'd say there is about 1.5 hours of action yet it isn't boring and is always exciting to see. Filming in Australia again was a great idea, the locations in the film are amazing, long rocky roads and empty deserts really made you feel like this was a post-apocalyptic world that these character are living in.
The fact that the movie is one long action scene is a real big feat for me and it establishes the film as one of the greatest action films of the last decade. The actors are all great in their roles, i can't imagine any film being better than this, this summer.
4.6/5