What a ride!

Rating: 8/10 (26 May 2015)

Long story short, this movie is fun, the story is too simple in fact it's just one car chase stretched over two hours but it's still fun. Detailed review for those who are interested, this movie is an absolute visual treat, the images of the film will stay in your head for weeks if not years, if a world were ever to witness an apocalypse it will not look like the one in Mad Max, and muscle cars will probably not make it but don't think too much and enjoy the ride, Nux driving around Max as his bloodbag on his car is both hilarious and disturbing but these images stick with you, this movie has what it takes to make that visual impact and even make smartphone addicts stop and look up. Most people would think that Fury Road is Furiosa's story and Mad Max has no contribution to the film on an emotional level. But this is not true, the bedrock of this movie is the relationship between Max and Furiosa, I found this the most appealing aspect of the film, I was afraid that there was going to be some unnecessary romance but their relationship is so much more than that, it's one of mutual respect, admiration and even need of each other, they have something bigger than romance they are truly comrades in war, brothers (or sisters?) in war. Of course this is Hollywood and they may just screw this up in the sequel but right now I was just pleased to see such a platonic relationship between the two leads. Both Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron are in peak form in here. However, my personal favorite was Nicholas Hoult's Nux. Max and Furiosa seek redemption and are tortured by it, and Nux achieves redemption faster than them both. He is a great comic relief which is surprising since he is a homicidal hormonal teenager but it works. Nux is also the medium through whom the director is communicating to the viewer how screwed up the wasteland of Mad Max is, he is the craziest character among the good people who are all normal he is the constant reminder to the viewer that this world has gone to hell. Also he says the iconic line- "What a day, what a lovely day". almost every time he attempts to kill himself to achieve glory in battle, what a nutjob, I like him. The villain Immortan Joe is visually intimidating and some parallels /analogy may be drawn about him being an abusive pimp who is trying to reclaim his "property" as he puts it, this simple motivation is enough to make Joe a bad guy and be hated. Sex trafficking is a theme quite prevalent in Mad Max but it's understated, it's upto the viewer to figure out in an otherwise starightforward movie. Joe on top of being all that is greedy too but the film doesn't focus much on that. One of the things that really bothered me was that how easily Nux turned on his former boss, all it took was a red head supermodel. It was quite lame, why is Furiosa even attempting such a wild mission? Warboys and the entire army of Immortan Joe are hormonal young men, Furiosa may just as well say - We got supermodels, the best women for breeding on this wasteland here boys, let us up. BAM Immortan Joe dead, the boys let the girls in. Overall I liked the film, my personal favorite Mad Max film still remains the original Mad Max (1979) because it's still to date the only Mad Max which shows character development, Max's wife and child die in that film and it's referenced all throughout Fury Road via PTSD nightmarish visions of Max. Also, Mel Gibson just does a better Mad Max than Tom Hardy who is quite good himself but he doesn't portray enough of Mad Max like Gibson did over three movies.