Three stars
Dir: George Miller
With: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult
Runtime: 120 minutes
SOME aeons ago, in the days when having a Wii meant something else entirely and Easter eggs were strictly chocolate (ask the kids), director George Miller had the idea of a film that would be powered largely by high-octane action, where the stunt and the set-piece would be mightier than the rapier barb. His creation, Mad Max, the story of a traffic cop of the future turned lone gun traveller through a post-apocalyptic outback, was the bare knuckle and brilliant result.
Almost four decades later, the video game generation has grown up and caught up with Miller. Just in time, he has delivered perhaps the purest expression of his concept in the fourth in the series, Mad Max: Fury Road. Miller has come home, and in grand style too. If you are in the mood for two hours of senses-pummelling, eardrum rattling cinema where everything, including story, plays second fiddle to the action, form a disorderly queue here.
The first MM in 1979 starred a fresh out of drama school actor by the name of Mel Gibson. You may recall Mr Gibson from the famously "accurate" historical drama Braveheart. He went on to do the 1981 movie and the 1985 outing too. But times change, stars rise and fall, and doing his duty in this future set world as Max Rockatansky is Tom Hardy. Or as he introduces himself, "My name is Max. My world is fire and blood." It doesn't rhyme, but it would be a brave soul who would call Max out on it. Having suffered loss and trauma in the previous pictures, not to mention getting sand where no man wants sand, Max is a troubled enough soul. And that's before he is kidnapped by the War Boys, a gang of bovver boy hoodlums who do the bidding of the grotesque leader, Immortan Joe.
After an opening half hour of helter skelter action it is not looking terribly hopeful for Max, but he, and we, ain't seen nothing yet. Roaring into the action is ace driver and top flight soldier Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron). Furiosa by name, mightily narked by nature, it is her mission to transport across country a gaggle of scantily clad goddess types wearing entirely the wrong colour for a dusty trip across the desert. Foremost among them is Rosie Huntington-Whitely, better known hitherto for Transformers and modelling M&S knickers. Can Max put aside his many heartaches to help these lady travellers on their way? And is there any chance of M&S knickers bringing out a Mad Max range? One of the answers to these questions is no.
Miller, who has also turned his hand to such delights as Happy Feet and Babe: Pig in the City (there's diversity for you), keeps the action coming at a ferocious pace, the number of quiet, human to human connection moments in the film kept to a bare minimum. That's a pity, as is the fact Miller does not pile in more humour. His rebooted Max is all about attitude, decibels and effects and he delivers plenty of both. With Max it ought to be all about the vehicles, and the ones here are the stuff of a petrolhead's dreams. As for attitude, Hardy has it to burn. On that front, and also worth a mention in dispatches, is young Nicholas Hoult as a War Boy. Leading the charge for the distaff side is Theron, sporting a GI Jane haircut and some impressive fighting skills.
While hardly enough to even out the hormone levels - Fury Road remains more testosterone-fuelled than a world heavyweight boxing match crossed with the average episode of Top Gear - it will have to do. As it is, Miller has delivered enough to start the engines running on a whole new Max franchise if he so wishes. Even the hard to please video game generation, who can access this sort of fare any day on their computers, should find something special, something uniquely cinematic, in this big screen feast of fire, blood, noise and petrol.
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