"Mad Max: Fury Road" is a sort of benchmark of how other action movies will be judged in the future. Excellent!

Rating: 10/10 (23 May 2015)

There are some movies considering a visual style, the special FX or pure TNT action that set the benchmark of excellence for other movies to follow. These films come very rare, sometime once in a decade. It is even more rare to actually see I remake which is directed by the same director from the original movie and it is total rarity if the new version is better then the original. This is precisely what we get with this years most action charged remake of "Mad Max: Fury Road", an absolutely marvelous attempt by director George Miller to revitalize this cult 80's classic. The original trilogy set Mel Gibson on to the Hollywood stardom and who knows this film might take Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy to the next level as well.
"Years after the collapse of civilization, the tyrannical Immortan Joe enslaves apocalypse survivors inside the desert fortress the Citadel. When the warrior Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) leads the despot's five wives in a daring escape, she forges an alliance with Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy), a loner and former captive. Fortified in the massive, armored truck the War Rig, they try to outrun the ruthless warlord's henchmen in a high-speed, deadly chase through the Wasteland."
Essentially the whole movie we might describe as long continues action chase scene. The intensity of pyrotechnics, stunts and greens screen compositions is a unbelievable experience. I had a pleasure to see it twice. Once in IMAX 3D and once in standard 3D. The IMAX version is where the film truly excels, in fact watching it, you as the viewer are actively participating in what is going on on the screen. The combination of great sound design and visuals create hypnotic atmosphere which we are lucky to experience. I must say I don't remember the last time I felt such a rush, it is truly mind-blowing. The way it is shot it looks as if director of photography recorded the action sequences in very slow frame rate and and in the post production editor speeded the action up creating very crisp sharp picture. Normally whenever camera operator moves camera sideways it creates a motion blur. In "Mad Max: Fury Road" the picture is so crisp that at times is almost looking bit artificial. Apparently 80% of the movie was shot on location using practical stunts and only 20% of sequences where supplemented with CGI. I have to say the first 30 minutes can be put in to a film history books as the most intense and mind-blowing action sequence. This film also uses a different color palate then most post apocalyptic movies of the past which usually focus on washed out desaturated color scheme. "Mad Max: Fury Road" is highly colorful and saturated with red hot explosions and beautiful golden deserts. The final color correction is a real eye candy.
The lead performances are very solid. Charlize Theron brings extreme amount of intensity not seen since her magnificent Oscar awarded performance in "Monster". You can see that she did her homework. The inner work which she has learned in Ivana Chubbuck studio shines through every inch of her being. There is a strength and vulnerability in her performance which in someway steals the whole movie. Tom Hardy in the last few years became truly well crafted actor. His minimalistic approach to acting brings to mind genius of Marlon Brando. He does't talk much relying on body language and sort of mumbling delivery of lines which creates very believable characterization. The chemistry between him and Theron is very good and we are hoping for them to succeed and fall for each other on the romantic level. It looks like Nicholas Hoult has been casted based of his performance as a lovable zombie in "Warm Bodies" and to some extent delivers similar type of performance as a War Boy - Nux who is trying to get to mythical Valhalla, place popularized by Vikings as the paradise after death where all the real warriors reside after their heroic death.
In terms of the story or rather a plot "Mad Max: Fury Road" is very straight forward which for some might leave something to be desired. But lets face it this film does what it promises. It offers mind-blowing action unlike any other you have seen in the last few years. In that regard "Mad Max: Fury Road" sets a new standard for action intensity and it looks like we will see more of sequels considering that Tom Hardy signed a contract to make 3 more movies. If there is one thing to be critical about it, is the fact that plenty of dialog was rerecorded using ADR (automatic dialog replacement) which gives sense of artificiality, because it is very difficult to rerecord dialog and give the same type of performance intensity as in the actual take on location. The reason for it might be above mentioned frame rate racking, which later in post- production is being speed up where lips do not move in sink with the sound of the actors and subsequently need to be looped in ADR session.
"Mad Max: Fury Road" is a new type of movie of a digital filmmaking age, sort of benchmark of how other action movies will be judged. I loved it and if you like an exhilarating action you won't be disappointed as well. I promise!