DIRECTOR: George Miller WRITER: George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris CAST: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Josh Helman, Nathan Jones, Zoë Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, John Howard, Richard Carter AUSTRALIA/USA 2015
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Every few years there are milestones in action cinema that the next few action movies try to follow in their steps and emulate. 1981; Raiders Of The Lost Ark, 1988; Die Hard, 1991; Terminator 2: Judgement Day, 1999; The Matrix, 2008; The Dark Knight. 2015 marks the next milestone in action cinema with George Miller’s apocalyptic epic; Mad Max: Fury Road. This movie is everything I want an action movie to be.
It follows Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) joining forces with Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to get The Immortan’s (Hugh Keays-Byrne) “breeding wives” to safety in a location where Furiosa calls “The Green Place” while The Immortan and his army of “Warboys” give chase along the vast desert wasteland of Australia. First off, the action was incredible, all practical effects, real vehicles being destroyed with very little CGI and visible stunt doubles for Hardy and Theron etc. While the action is almost non-stop, as to be
expected from a Mad Max movie, the plot with Theron’s character had a surprising amount of depth and feeling to it.
The cast are all great, especially Hugh Keays-Byrne who plays one of the best movie antagonists in recent memory. Byrne also played the main antagonist in the original 1979 Mad Max but he’s unrecognisable in his skull mask, arm or, grotesque make-up and is an
terrific piece of casting. Tom Hardy is excellent as Max. Max Rockatansky has always been one of my favourite movie characters and in my opinion, Hardy has already overtaken Mel Gibson’s portrayal. Hardy’s Max lives up to his “mad” moniker more than Gibson. He hears voices, suffers from hallucinations and incoherently mumbles to himself on occasions which gives the character a slightly dark comedic touch which also gives him a large, memorable screen presence. Also, his voice isn’t really Australian anymore, but more of a quiet, deep, gravelly whisper which makes his very few lines much more “cool” to hear.
Mad Max: Fury Road is a visual masterpiece, the best of the series, the best four-quel ever made and the best action movie I’ve seen in the last two decades. Go see it… Now.