Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

*** ½ out of ****

Ten minutes into “Fury Road” I thought I had been sucked in by Rotten Tomatoes again. I went to see this film because it has a ridiculously high 98% rating on the review site, so I figured it must really be something. But ten minutes in I was EXTREMELY uncomfortable with the decision, thinking I was watching a cross between “The Road Warrior”, “Silent Hill” and “The Descent”. The sped up freaky action and bone-white villains, not to mention the frenetic camera motions and bizarre hallucinations made it seem pretty friggin' bad.

…..but then something happened.....

Thirty years ago we last saw Mad Max in "Beyond Thunderdome", a really poor effort of a film after the masterful “The Road Warrior” (1981). Big budget and blockbuster, it was a canned formula movie totally unlike the Indie-feeling original two Mad Max films. Now that Mel Gibson is getting up there (and burning Hollywood bridges like California brushfires) it would figure that Mad Max had gone the way of the dodo.

We now find Max played by Tom Hardy (who I last saw as Bob in the wonderful “The Drop”-2014) and he continues to roam the post apocalyptic wasteland. But he is captured by a community of outlaws, who belong to a city they call “The Citadel”. This aspect was intriguing because The Citadel is like Waco, Texas complete with a David Koresh-like leader, Immortan Joe, who his followers believe to be a new Messiah. They also believe that if they die doing his bidding, they will immediately find themselves in Valhalla, a heaven-like concept that Joe has resurrected in full form from Norse legend.

Kept alive only because his blood is found to be a “universal donor” for the ill “war-boys” (nobody ever says what they are ill from, but radiation poisoning seems the safest bet), Max is a prisoner in chains and unable to fight. And when he is dragged along with a war party (to keep pumping blood into Nux, a war-boy), he is so completely bound his eventual death seems inescapable.

What the war parties are chasing is “The War Machine”, a big rig taken from The Citadel by Furiosa (Charlize Theron). Stowed away on the War Machine are Immortan Joe's wives, all young nubile things he uses for breeding. Seeing their chastity belts will make the most rugged man squirm.  The war parties are to catch up with and kill Furiosa, then return the wives unharmed.

Now let me first say that this film is risky. Mad Max is not the star (Furiosa is), there is minimal CGI (a lot has been made of the fact that 90% of the stunts are real), there are uncomfortable religious overtones throughout and the key character of the war-boy Nux is played by Nicolas Hoult (R from “Warm Bodies), painted white, shaved bald and pretty revolting throughout. The most accurate description of the last 100 minutes of the movie would be a long, adrenaline-soaked car chase – much like the last 15 minutes of “The Road Warrior” dragged out much longer.

And it works. MAN, does it work.

The tension throughout this thing is mind-blowing. The chase is so intense you are literally on the edge of your seat the ENTIRE TIME. The performances are fine (which is all they need to be in something like this), and the storyline is remarkably coherent and enjoyable despite the discomfort of some of the themes.

If you love pure action, no-holds-barred, butt-puckering pressure and destruction on a grand scale, this is your movie. Despite the oddness of that first ten minutes, this is something really wonderful, and surely good enough to hold it's own with “The Road Warrior”. If there was ANYTHING you liked about the original trilogy, don't miss this movie. In my opinion it is the best of the bunch, and not by a small margin.