Director: George Miller
Starring: Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keys-Bearne, Zoë Kravitz
Release Date: May 15, 2015
Years in the making, director of the original Mad Max trilogy George Miller crafts the most exciting film in the franchise yet.
Half remake, half reboot, we find Tom Hardy as the title character battling the demons of his dead family. He’s stuck in the barren, brown landscape of yore. Deformities riddle the population and water is in short supply. This post-apocalyptic world is just as dangerous as it was 35 years ago.
Max is kidnapped by the skeletal bidders of Immortan Joe, the fat despot of the thirsty. He’s intent on breeding normal-looking boys with his harem of ethereal young women. But Charlize Theron’s badass warrior Imerperator Infuriosa has plans of her own, and with an escaped Max at her side she escorts Joe’s chaste girls to the Green Place in search of flowing water and freedom. But a feverish, diesel-fueled cavalry pursues Infuriosa’s battle tanker and her virginal escapees.
Fury Road is rarely plot-driven. It’s an unrelenting barrage of explosions and chase scenes with Miller’s rusty, armored hybrid vehicles. For a film of a 120 minutes, Miller’s stamina carries on with youthful vigor for a saintly 2/3 of Fury Road. It’s no less than furious — more furious than this year’s Furious 7.
Classic, campy Miller humor (sure battle drums, but a battle electric guitar too!) interrupts the action with welcome. His comic pauses release the tension we implicitly agreed to when we bought our tickets. And with minor characters’ love story, Miller makes room for strong-ish women (they may be too distressed). Alas, for an old man, Miller tries his best at equality with mild-to-good success.
With today’s technology at his disposal, Miller outdoes his competition, the franchise, and himself. There is nothing laudable about any one aspect of Fury Road (except for a clean vision amid a dusty setting). But as a whole it makes the last few years — perhaps decades — of the action genre look lazy.
