A madly beautiful post-apocalyptic movie in ages

Rating: 9/10 (6 June 2015)

Insane. Captivating. Frenetic. Visceral. Beautiful.
Mad Max Fury Road is a frenetic roller coaster ride unlike any other. It was written with minimalist dialogue, saturated colour palette and a visceral neck break speed. The smooth blend between practical VFX and CGI makes the movie believable, and yet feels so otherworldly.
Miller & co. directed his movie like fine arts maestros as if it were a motion painting - an artistic expression of art, visual, sound and motion.
In Fury Road, we find Max Rockatansky played by Tom Hardy, haunted by his past (with strobing flashes of characters from the first movie) traversing the bleak desert landscape of a future world where the Earth has become almost barren due to nuclear war. There he struggles to survive by driving his Interceptor car from place to place, avoiding marauding gangs and running away from the ghosts of his past.
We find Max's survival skills intact, wearing the same jacket from the Mel Gibson's days, complete with his cool Interceptor, knee harness and shotgun. I still miss his dog, and it is a pity that the Interceptor is destroyed so quickly in the beginning of the movie. I've read that the video game builds a back story where you control Max and trying to build his Interceptor.
The movie movie is set in a world where food and water are scarce. Nature and humans have mutated, and humanity is enslaved by its own survival instinct. In this chapter, we get a glimpse of a town ruled by Immortan Joe, a disfigured old tyrant, who lives atop a rocky cliff. In the caverns of his palace, he has adequate water, plants and slaves to do his bidding.
From time to time, he would send out his lieutenant, Imperator Furiosa, to retrieve oil from one of the last remaining oil rigs near his town. The movie's plot basically revolves around Furiosa's plot to safely elope with Immortan's wives to the Green Place, her childhood birthplace.
Almost the entire movie is a long string of car chase sequences, that needs to be experienced in the cinema. It's simply a tour de force of the car chase sub-genre. In a time when we have series like The Transporter, Fast Furious and well made post-apocalyptic features - it's amazing how Fury Road can stands on its own weight and deliver something fresh and unique.
I have to say that compared with Gibson's version, Hardy's Max is slightly mad and at times feels like he is just a passenger in Furiosa's story. The scenes with the guitarist, the custom cars and war rigs fights were thrilling and pure popcorn cinema.
Though the level of violence is not as brutal as Mad Max 1 & 2, Fury Road is still dark and unsettling in some places. My wife still finds the movie too violent, but nevertheless entertaining.
Go see it today, you owe yourself a speedy treat!