Review: Mad Max Fury Road, Adrenaline Made Manifest
- May 14, 2018
- 2 min read
Some of action cinema’s greatest moments revolve the chase. On foot, in planes, through narrow corridors and across open spaces. But the best of these involve cars. So imagine if you took a car chase, packed with a mix of nitrous oxide and adrenaline, and made a whole movies out of it. Mad Max Fury Road.
Max (Tom Hardy) finds himself the prisoner of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), the cruel ruler of a water starved wasteland. When one of Joe’s lieutenants, Furiosa (Charlize Theron), takes his wives and runs, Max finds himself in the middle of a road war as various factions vie for supremacy on the fury road.
Fury Road isn’t one for characters or story, indeed it can be summed up as being a big u-turn, but it is so confident in the execution of its world, its action and its cars that you don’t really notice. 2 minutes and 30 seconds into the film and we get out first chase, and it doesn’t stop. As a car battery is charged through the vehicles movement, Fury Road draws its power from the frantic and unending momentum of the film, a cacophonous triumph of style, so packed with visuals and excitement it is close to bursting. Be it the Doof Warrior, a blind guitarist riding atop a mobile speaker system and wielding a flame-throwing guitar, or the fanatical dedication of Immortan Joe’s Warboys, and their quest to gain entry into Valhalla, Fury Road is filled with interesting things to see, and stories to uncover. But that’s not why you’re here. You’re here for the action.
As dozens of vehicles tear across the desert, looking like a fever dream of The Fast And Furious franchise, Fury Road is all about the inter-vehicle combat. The various cars and trucks are kitted out with all manner of killing machines, from buzzsaws to flamethrowers, spikes to machines guns, and each gets their moment to shine. As they burn their way through the sandy dunes it looks like something, well, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. And when they do battle, it is much the same. A combination of gasoline fueled titans and hardened warriors, the orange hued battles and the drums of war, it’s like an IV drip of excitement
Fury Road is something of an indescribable movie. There’s little in the way of character and plot, and what there is is pretty standard stuff. But in terms or raw excitement, of a pure distillation of action, there is no equal. Witness this.
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