Part of the appeal of the blockbuster action movie is that it can gather the resources to show us things that can only exist in the world of fantasy: the crazy, often-ridiculous choreographed spectacles of violence and explosions that would terrifying in real life. But the economics of their production require them to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, which means they really can’t be as crazy as they could be. They all tend to look the same, with visual effects sanding out all the rough edges, creating a glossy homogeneity. They tend to be fettered with unnecessary elements, like romantic subplots and promotional tie-ins. But we accept it all because the blockbuster action movie tends to be as crazy as we get. But now Mad Max: Fury Road comes along and reminds us what crazy truly is.
The film doesn’t waste much time setting up the world. A very brief prologue hits all the salient points: a cataclysm that left nothing but fire and blood and destruction. It begins in the Citadel, a city ruled by the fearsome warlord Immortan (Hugh Keays-Byrne). One of his subjects, Furiosa (Charlize Theron) defies him by smuggling his five slave wives (Rosie Huntington-Whitely, Zoe Kravitz, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee and Courney Eaton) out of the Citadel. She heads east on her war rig, hoping to make it back to the place where she was born. Immortan puts together a war party and chases after her. The haunted, half-insane Max (Tom Hardy) finds himself in the middle of this mess, and decides to help Furiosa out.
The plot is beautifully simple. It doesn’t have an ounce of extra weight on it. Once Furiosa makes her crucial detour into open defiance, the rest of the film becomes one long, amazing car chase through a terrifying wasteland. There isn’t an ounce of extra weight in this story. If it does not contribute to the sense of momentum and mayhem, it simply isn’t in there. There are brief pauses in this chase, moments that allow the audience to breathe, but they are just as filled with tension and drama and pure unbridled madness as any of the action sequences. These are not normal people, after all. They grew up in the wasteland, and they are driven by things that we cannot even imagine. This is a simple film, but it is not a dumb one. It is just lean and mean and smart in all the right ways.
And it is beautiful. The film is fueled with madness, every corner of its design filled to the brim with visual imagination. Every vehicle featured in the movie has some unique design element to it, all of it contributing to a grander portrait of this particular apocalypse. There are cars covered in wooden spikes. There is a rig that seems to have been put together solely to provide the car chase with an electric musical score. Every action sequence is a triumph of kineticism and pure bombast. It makes everything else, even something like Fast and Furious 7 feel like riding a bike with training wheels on.
This is clearly scaled way up from the original movies, with a larger budget and the inclusion of computer generated effects. But the crazed B-movie spirit of those decades-old films has not been lost. There still seems to be a preference for practical car stunts, which just makes everything feel more dangerous. Director George Miller, now 70, hasn’t lost a step at all. He is still just as committed to showing the audience things they haven’t seen before. The film also features some great acting. Tom Hardy uses his eyes to convey the same instability that Mel Gibson often does, but adds a layer of appealing self-awareness to the whole deal. But the actual star of the film is Charlize Theron, who as Furiosa creates one of the memorable female action leads of all time. She is tough and compassionate and carries with her a past filled with regret and longing. It is a magnetic performance that stands out especially in a time filled with talk of how Hollywood has been failing women.
And that’s another amazing trick pulled by Mad Max: Fury Road. This is, at its core, a story about women. Again, the film is simple, but it is not dumb. It just ignores everything that makes blockbusters bloated and same-y. It creates its own path through the wasteland of homogenous entertainment. And through all of the grotesque visuals and the violence and the entire world of ruin that it builds, the movie actually tells a story of hope and redemption, of a way forward through the madness. This movie sets a new standard for action blockbusters. It turns out we can do better. We had done better. George Miller did it over three decades ago on what most productions nowadays spend on catering. Mad Max: Fury Road, in all of its mad splendor, is simply better.
My Rating:
