Over the top insanity, mayhem, and violence... and that's just OK

Rating: 7/10 (24 May 2015)

There's always been something a bit... quirky... about George Miller's film making sensibilities. Call it "Australian" if you will or perhaps it's just a comic book feel but from my admittedly American perspective, all the "Mad Max" series felt a bit different than the traditional uber-violent, slick high-action popcorn flicks. The "Die Hards," "Terminators," and so on.
This has been its - and Miller's - big strengths. He's got a feel for a strange back story and somewhat absurdist characterization and a deranged aesthetic that drew me to the Mad Max series originally.
"The Road Warrior" was undoubtedly the high point of this series. Though always a lone-wolf anti-hero, Mel Gibson's Max was far more interesting and likable and the central action set pieces brilliantly and tightly executed. Miller was at the top of his game back then.
"Fury Road" has given Miller a much wider brush to execute the strange and quirky sensibility and that feels like its key fault to me. It's the "too much budget" syndrome and it's afflicted many a movie that was great precisely because it didn't have a massive budget. 30+ years and $150M+ to spend hasn't exactly been kind to this series.
Tom Hardy is scarcely registering a pulse as Max. Does he utter more than 12 barely intelligible words throughout the film? In a film with "Mad Max" in the title I can hardly tell that Mad Max was even there. He could have been replaced by almost any other character in the movie. Nicholas Hoult's Nux - a vastly more interesting character - for example. Or Charlize Theron's Imperator Furiousa, who may have more screen time than Tom Hardy.
Over-the-top violence and excess is a trademark of this series. To not go in expecting this is absurd. The problem is that the violence feels like an intentionally garish suit that Miller has put on. The absurd audio-visual assault of the first 5-10 minutes of the film, for example, feels precisely this way. What's Miller going for here? What part of the plot and story is he trying to lay out and advance, exactly? Nothing, really, I'd argue. It's there purely to prepare your mind for the ensuing craziness, sort of like a shock treatment.
I was very excited when I first saw the "Fury Road" trailers. YES! Another Mad Max movie, finally. But Miller over-sold his story and vision in the end. He had way, way too much money to spend. I would have bought it more if he and Hardy hadn't decided to make Max this very distant, almost mute character. Max is NOT a traditional hero, to be sure, but he has a moral center most of us can attach to. I won't say this center was entirely lost here but I felt little emotion toward Max at the end. That likability was there throughout the series - from the first Mad Max to the Road Warrior to Thunderdome.
It's sadly missing here.