The Godfather Part III. The Matrix Revolutions. The Dark Knight Rises. Film trilogies are littered with disappointing finales. The Mad Max trilogy was a prime example. The 1979 original was a low-budget muscle car flick: think a scaled-down Fast & Furious in the Outback. Its 1981 sequel, The Road Warrior, upped the ante thanks to an exponentially higher budget. Its climactic chase sequence remains one of cinema’s all-time action highlights. So what did Hollywood do with Part Three? Tone down the violence. Add annoying children. Make feckin’ Tina Turner the love interest. Needless to say, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome is not “Simply the Best”. So I was sceptical when I heard about yet another Mad Max, first announced in… 2001? (Editor’s note: that’s not a misprint.) 2001. Everyone had a Nokia 3310. Apple shares were $10 a pop. And nine-year-old could still enter an aeroplane’s cockpit.
The 9/11 attacks delayed filming. And so, Mad Max 4 remained in “development hell” for over a decade. Would it be closer to Schindler’s List or Duke Nukem Forever? Director George Miller has a… ahem, “mixed” record with sequels (Babe: Pig in the City, Happy Feet 2). Audiences had their first taste at Comic-Con 2014, as its debut trailer was released…
It’s… AWESOME! Seriously, watch it below. Its one of my favourite movie trailer ever, along with Iron Man and The Wolf of Wall Street. Yet neither of those quite lived up to their 90-second sizzle reels. Could this?
Yes. Yes. One thousand times yes. Happily, Mad Max: Fury Road isn’t a slave to continuity. (Unlike the increasingly cramped Marvel Cinematic Universe.) Everything you need to know is set up in the first five minutes. Man lost civilisation. Max has lost his mind. He suppresses grief and every other human emotions. In this post-apocalyptic wasteland, he has regressed to an animal. He no longer lives. He survives. But his luck runs out when he is captured by a homicidal cult of War Boys. It’s at this point I always wonder – why bother keeping Max alive? Why not hijack the sweet-ass V8 Interceptor and leave its driver for the buzzards? But Miller, qualified doctor, comes up with a unique and plausible reason. Max Rockatansky’s blood type is O negative. And if you slept through your Haematology lectures, that’s the Universal Donor. Caged like veal, his blood literally fuels his anaemic captors.
Blood isn’t the only precious fluid in the wasteland. The original trilogy played off the fears of an OPEC-era audience – “peak oil”. But modern fracking has brought a barrel of oil down to a measly $42 – a fraction of its 2008 value. As that year’s (awful) Quantum of Solace predicted, water has become most precious resource. In Fury Road, its life-giving flow is controlled exclusively by the Big Bad, Immortan Joe. A despicable patriarch, Joe rules over his oasis Citadel with an iron fist. Yet every great leader needs a right-hand man. Immortan Joe… has a woman.
Imperator Furiosa. Remember that name. It joins Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connors or Katniss Everdeen in the pantheon of cinema’s greatest action heroines. Charlize Theron’s magnetic performance deserves top billing, overshadowing poor Tom Hardy in every scene. In a just world, her harrowing portrayal would earn her an Oscar nomination. Furiosa is the true protagonist. Her act of defiance sets the plot in motion. This is her road to redemption.
Most action films hit their stride in their final act – their last half-hour or so. But Miller admits his creation is two hours of “final act”. All climax. But in contrast with most bloated blockbusters, Fury Road masterfully demonstrates how “less is more”. Dialogue is lean, not bloated. Sound design is bombastic, not deafeningly. Violence is R-rated, yet restrained. Action is breathless – yet its full hour of speed-ramping is unobtrusive. Superimposed practical effects are a treat to the eyes. By obeying the laws of physics, they massage the brain. That’s a real fireball. This is an actual explosion. That mega-amped double-guitar really is a flamethrower! Jeez, just writing about it makes me want to… Ah what the hell? 1600 words is enough. Corzie’s got a movie to watch.
Corzies 
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