It's been 30 years since the world last glimpsed “Mad” Max Rockatansky, once an outlaw Australian cop patrolling the twilight of civilization. Over the course of three Mad Max films, the future got stranger and more savage, with a demonically violent car culture replacing the last remnants of social order. The trilogy's original director, George Miller, has brought Max back for a new feature, casting Tom Hardy in the title role created by Mel Gibson. Mad Max: Fury Road is more of a spiritual sequel than a reboot, with Hardy playing a fresh variation on the tough-as-nails but haunted survivor of prior chapters.
The film's opening finds Max captured by Immortan Joe ( Hugh Keays-Byrne), a wasteland warlord who controls a precious water source and has erected a cult of automotive martyrdom around himself. Max's fate becomes entangled with that of Joe's mutinous lieutenant Furiosa (Charlize Theron), who is enacting a scheme to liberate the tyrant's five slave-wives. The story is straightforward stuff, revolving around the conflict between mere survival and moral redemption. Ultimately, however, it's mostly a bare-bones rationale for a 120-minute chase sequence of fiery, dusty, nitro-fueled chaos.
Fury Road proves to be an electrifying homecoming for Miller. The first Mad Max had a tiny budget, but the filmmaker squeezed those funds to create some sensationally ferocious and influential action cinema. Fury Road illustrates what happens when the artistic instincts and hell-bent ambition that drove the original film are bestowed with $150 million. The new film's action set-pieces are constructed primarily from stunt work and practical effects, and the result is positively jaw-dropping: a kind of frenzied punk ballet writ in twisted metal. In essence, Fury Road has declared itself the new action movie standard for the 21st century, and then dared anyone to call it liar.
Mad Max: Fury Road opens Friday, May 15 in wide release.
