Movie Review: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) directed by George Miller
It’s been some years since we last saw Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy). He’s almost unrecognizable as the same person. By now, there are adults who were born after the fall of the previous civilization and have no memory of what once was. Max’s mental state has deteriorated; he’s hearing voices and hallucinating the various people he has failed to save over the decades. In many ways, he’s just become a survival machine, haunted by the past and pursued by scavengers in the present.
Max is captured by War Boy soldiers from The Citadel, a fortress run by the cruel Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Immortan Joe has a monopoly on clean water in the area, and dominates his allies in the nearby Gastown and Bullet Farm. A military man before the end of the Water Wars, Joe treats his subjects as property, encouraging the War Boys to worship him in cult-like fashion, and forces himself on “wives” for breeding purposes. Many of the War Boys are dying as various diseases or just malnutrition, so they supplement their vigor with blood transfusions from healthier folk. Max turns out to be a universal donor, and is assigned as a “blood bag” to Nux (Nicholas Hoult).
When one of Immortan Joe’s trusted Imperators, Furiosa (Charlize Theron), hijacks a trade mission to smuggle Joe’s “Wives” away to “the Green Place” in a tanker War Rig, Nux insists on being part of the pursuit despite his debilitated state. He has Max attached to the front of his car like a figurehead, and joins the other War Boys in what he thinks is a rescue mission to keep the War Rig out of the hands of the rival Buzzards tribe.
Through various circumstances, Nux (unconscious at this point) and the still chained to him Max are the only pursuers who actually catch up to Furiosa and the Wives when they stop. Max and Furiosa clash at first, especially when Max tries to steal the rig, but they soon learn that they’re going to need to work together to escape the pursuers, and Max eventually warms up to the idea of delivering the Wives to The Green Place.
Nux, still desperate for attention and approval from Immortan Joe, and to be “witnessed” “dying historic” joins the pursuit again, but fails miserably. He’s in enough shock from this that when Capable {Riley Keough) shows him compassion, Nux is able to switch sides (and find that he’s much more competent when he’s on the right path.)
Now united in purpose, the fugitives head towards the Green Place. But will they find the paradise Furiosa remembers, or has the journey been in vain?
It had been thirty years since the previous movie in the series, Beyond Thunderdome, due to various developmental woes, and Mel Gibson wasn’t interested in returning to the role after so long. Thus the recasting with an actor who doesn’t look nearly as old as Max should be at this point, and some fudging as to which parts of the backstory are in continuity for this movie.
The movie’s impressively shot, using practical effects and actual stunts as much as possible. Those are real vehicles getting smashed up, and actual Cirque du Soliel performers working on those flexible poles. Computer effects are used for things like giving Furiosa an artificial arm, and disguising Namibia as the Australian desert for some scenes, as hilariously it was raining too much in Australia, making the place look green!
While tough women always featured in Mad Max movies, Fury Road veers much more strongly towards female characters’ stories, with Furiosa, the Wives, and late in the film the Mothers of the Vuvalini tribe. Max is essentially the special guest star in their history. He’s important, but at the end Furiosa is the one the story’s about.
There are some resonating themes here, especially how Immortan Joe and his allies are old white men who abuse their authority and make their communities worse. But it’s not that deep, and you can enjoy it as an action film just fine.
Content note: Lots of violence, frequently lethal. Mild body horror. The War Boys are effectively hoping to die in battle so indulge in suicidal tactics. Immortan Joe practices slavery, including raping his “wives” in the backstory. Stillbirth. Nudity (but for a change in this series, no on screen sex.) An animal dies and is eaten still twitching. Late teens viewers with strong stomachs should be okay.
This makes a good capstone to the Mad Max series; while Max once again slips away at the end, he seems to have recovered his humanity and brought back a little more civilization to the postapocalyptic world. You could watch this one without seeing any of the previous ones, but I think at least The Road Warrior would be a good choice to see first.
