Mad at Max - But it's a dry heat

Rating: 7/10 (15 May 2015)

First of all, I loved the original Mad Max and The Road Warrior - not so much Thunderdome. Miller has a unique vision and really knows how to amp your adrenaline button. I am going to divide this review up in what I liked and didn't like about the new film. I will keep the content vague enough as to not give spoilers
First of all, I loved the creativity and art direction, you really do feel pulled into this world. It doesn't matter where on Earth this takes place, you recognize the pieces of the machinery and it screams "apocalyptic assimilation". Five stars for the creative vehicles, traps, weapons, etc. This is what the Mad Max universe is all about.
I really loved the fact that the trailer contained mostly scenes from the first 15 minutes of the film, so there is a lot of new footage to behold. I hate when trailers give away all the best parts of the film that leaves you just wanting to watch the trailer again and skip the full feature price.
Miller can direct an amazing sequence of action. Time and time again through the film, I could feel the adrenaline rising and my heart pounding - it is rare to get such a rush from films these days. There are a lot of surprises in the action, classic Miller unpredictability.
As for the violence, yes there is plenty of guys getting shot, blown up and run over. However, there isn't much graphic carnage. I am not complaining, but I not sure how they got the "R" rating. Granted there is a little bit of boob nudity, but no cursing that I could make out. I have seen more carnage on The Walking Dead, so not sure what the R was protecting teens from. Don't take your kids FFS!
Max loses points for poor script and character development. As to not spoil anything, I won't go into explicit detail, but you really don't care much about the characters. Max is plagued by visions of the dead throughout the film, and there is a lot of talk about redemption, but it never really resolves. There are many attempts to inject some sense of humanity into characters, but for the most part the audience doesn't care. Shouldn't we be blowing something up right now?
The film score is often right on the mark and then way off track. The beating drums and wailing guitar will hit their marks and then all of the sudden we are not doing anything terribly exciting and the score sounds like the Excalibur theme. It's like they decided that when the action is brought down to a calm, we had better amp the music up somehow.
Tom Hardy was terrible as Max. Honestly I don't know if it was the direction they were going or the lack of dialogue for Max, but Vin Diesel has shown more emoting as Groot. The film didn't even seem to need him all that much, it could have easily been called "Furiosa's Wild Ride". This was either poor casting or poor script/directing because I love Hardy's other work.
This film was geared for 3D and although I prefer to see films in 2D, I could tell there was too many attempts to feed the 3D machine. Can we agree that 3D is dead and just make films for audiences to enjoy now? Stop making everything come at me bro! I was also a little disappointed by the clearly excessive use of CGI. I loved all of the practical vehicles and stunts, so when I see crappy CGI, it takes me out of the moment. Keep it real, don't get lazy.
Overall, this film is a heart pounding thrill ride. I enjoyed my experience but it did not leave me wanting to see it again. Once you see the action sequences, you are pretty much done.