George Miller Scores...to the Max!

Rating: 10/10 (20 May 2015)

In a drastic move for a director who has so far this century only worked with dancing cartoon penguins, George Miller returns to the franchise that made his reputation and delivers a masterpiece of violence, velocity, and vroom-vroom that sets a new standard for R-rated action.
The screenplay (by Miller, comic book artist Brendan McCarthy, and "Mad Max" alum Nico Lathouris) is a work of minimalist brilliance that never bogs down the story with exposition or shoptalk. Just scanning a list of the character names makes the imagination run wild; how many summer blockbusters can you say that about?
Tom Hardy is fun in the title role, but Charlize Theron is the star. Nothing left to prove, Theron has entered the high-franchise phase of her career and now finally has a vehicle (no pun intended) to demonstrate real courage, grit, and leadership, with a subtle redemption arc that distinguishes her character from Tom Hardy's, who is motivated solely by his will to survive and silly accent. The rest of the cast is terrific too. X-Man Nicolas Hoult skillfully elicits real sympathy as the comic relief.
The legions of people who worked on the visual effects, sound, and stunts are all MVP's, and every technical element is turned up to eleven. Cinematographer John Seale, Oscar winner for "The English Patient," brings breath-taking desert visuals. Costume designer Jenny Beavan, Oscar winner (with NINE(!) nominations), deserves special recognition. My favorite? The heart-pounding music from Tom Holkenborg! If you loved the music in "Fury Road" then you are in luck: Holkenberg is scoring four more movies over the next year. I believe Holkenborg will come to define the sound of modern genre movies just as Hans Zimmer did in the last decade. Of course, the odds of this movie getting any Oscar nominations at all sit somewhere between those of "Ant-Man" and "Paul Blart 2."