An Absolute Joy

Rating: 8/10 (2 June 2015)

Mad Max: Fury Road is the fourth film of Miller's Mad Max franchise and the first film of the franchise in 30 years. Fury Road stars Tom Hardy as "Mad" Max Rockatansky, replacing Mel Gibson in the title role. Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, and Hugh Keays-Byrne also star.
Stunning, explosive, non-stop post-apocalyptic action for 120 minutes is an accurate yet perhaps slightly misleading description of the film, as with Fury Road, writer / director / producer George Miller has achieved far more than mere action proficiency. So rare with contemporary action films, the relationship between practical effects and CGI is balanced faultlessly, the like of which I haven't seen since Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. There's an equilibrium between the two and at times they both appear to blur the lines between one another – on multiple occasions I assumed that certain sequences simply had to be CGI, yet I now learn many sequences were just incredible pieces of stunt work and loving production design. The greatest testament to this balance is that all of the these conclusions have been drawn much later after watching the film, as during my viewing of it my mind could function little except from being simply blown away by the incredible spectacle Miller managed to create.
Paraphrasing Hitchcock in 2014, Miller light-heartedly suggested that he wanted Fury Road to be understood in Japan – without the use of subtitles. Now, writing as a teenager in rainy North-East Hampshire, I can offer little to demonstrate if Miller has been successful in his aims, yet I find little to suggest he failed. Compelling performances are universal, it doesn't matter if the language is spoken in English, Arabic, Cantonese or Portuguese, a good performance can transcend any language barrier, and Miller certainly has that in his ensemble cast. It seems impossible for Tom Hardy give a disappointing performance recently, but the true star of the film is Charlize Theron who gives a wonderful performance as the character Imperator Furiosa, combining raw physical strength and brutality with a core of emotional sensitivity.
Beyond performances, I feel like the film will be universally understandable simply because of the themes which are explored so delicately and overtly. The themes of survival and family are universal and are the driving force beyond a narrative which doesn't stop for a second's breath. The film pays homage to some of the classic American Westerns of the past, yet the comparisons I've seen comparing it to Road Runner seem just as astute to me. For me, it's somewhere in-between.