Mad Max: Fury Road Movie Review (Spoiler Free)

A pedal-to-the-metal spectacle of chaos and beauty. Frenzied action, wild characters, and stunning visuals ignite a post-apocalyptic masterpiece. It’s a lovely day!

Genre: Action / Sci-Fi

Director: George Miller

Cast: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Nathan Jones, Riley Keough, Zoe Kravitz, Abbey Lee & Courtney Eaton.

Run Time: 120 min.

US Release: 15 May 2015

UK Release: 14 May 2015

German Release: 14 May 2015

Ladies and gentlemen, Mad Max: Fury Road is the most incredible and intense action movie I have seen in years! When I came back from the cinema, I immediately sat down and took a pen and a pad to write my thoughts down, this is how good it was. It doesn’t mean that I misjudged Kingsman or The Avengers 2, as these aren’t pure action movies. Mad Max: Fury Road, however, is exactly that: a hardcore action movie, rated R!

The film is directed by George Miller (director of the original trilogy from the eighties) and was released in Germany on May 14^th. It stars Tom Hardy as the titular character Max Rockatansky, Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa, Nicholas Hoult as the crazy warboy Nux and Hugh Keays-Byrne as the villainous Immortan Joe.

Fury Road is the fourth instalment in the franchise, and was originally planned to have Mel Gibson return as Max. But when it was cancelled in 2003 due to the Iraq War (considered to be a politically sensitive movie), Gibson left production. This movie differs heavily from the original three movies. The world looks harsher, and the villains crazier and more ruthless.

The plot revolves around Furiosa trying to redeem herself by taking a group of young women to safety, crossing a deadly desert in an apocalyptic world. While hunted by a desert tribe, she crosses paths with Max, who agrees to help them due to reasons of his own.

According to rumours, Miller obtained his idea for the fourth film while passing through an intersection in L.A. The story is kept pretty simple, starting with a short explanation of the nuclear war that happened in the past. Along the way, we get little glimpses of the protagonist's past. Some of the audiences were bothered, as they felt that the movie had no real story, but that isn’t true at all. While the dialogues are kept at a low, it is the detailed visuals and imagery that drive the plot forward. The short, kept dialogues make this movie even more powerful, as most of the conversations happen through the characters' use of body language.

Fury Road shares great parallels with Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, but Miller mixed it up by throwing in some Waterworld aspects too. What I loved most about this action flick was seeing the games Borderlands and Rage (which are heavily influenced by the Mad Max series) come to life as a nonstop thrill ride.

Another aspect I praise George Miller for is the fact that he did not follow the late Hollywood cult of watering down action and violence to obtain a PG-13 rating. This movie is rated R hard, like all its predecessors and with good reason! If Miller had dialled down on the barbarity of this movie, all the craziness and fierceness would have been lost, and the film would have been a disaster.

Tom Hardy is great as Max Rockatansky, and I think it's one of his best portrayals as an iconic character. It is not just the lack of words that makes him look crazy; he uses his whole body to bring an incredibly believable performance to the screen.

I am going to say it, Charlize Theron is fucking amazing as Furiosa! She said so much through the use of her eyes; it was simply unbelievable to see her in that role. She didn’t need to say a word, and I still understood what she felt. I saw Theron in a lot of action films, but this is by far her best performance.

Nicholas Hoult as the crazy Nux was another great performance. A lunatic and partially an idiot, who praised the wrong guy and finds redemption by helping those he hurt. Hoult is normally cast as the nice guy, simply because he has the looks, I guess. But in the first half of this film, he managed to prove that he can be that despicable bad guy.

Hugh Keays-Byrne as Immortan Joe. What else is there to say other than “Toecutter” got even more abominable! Immortan Joe is disgusting and plain wrong. Keays-Byrne gives another epic portrayal of a villain in the Mad Max universe.

The special effects are another fantastic addition! From Furiosa’s lost arm to the sequence with the sandstorm, it looked all very realistic! Obviously, it was effects, as Theron wouldn’t amputate an arm for a role, but when computer-generated effects are used (and they are used very sparingly in this flick!), they simply look amazing. This brings me to my next point; I am happy to see that Miller used a lot of practical techniques and did not purely rely on computer imagery.

The camerawork is fantastic! No shaky cams during fight scenes (which were choreographed great), wide panoramic shots are used for great explosions, and close-ups on people and important scenes are used correctly. That escape scene at the beginning, before Max was branded, is shot facing Hardy and moving backwards with him. It is then sped up to power the moment, which works incredibly well, as my heart nearly jumped out of my chest while watching that segment.

Interestingly, Miller incorporated many elements of Michael Bay’s style into this action spectacle, utilising dynamic shots to intensify the action with great success. This is partially due to the use of "bayham-isms" that contributed to the movie's success. The lighting and colour palette are other beautiful aspects of the cinematography, using orange and yellows for the infertile land, contrasting with the rusty-metallic browns.

I am aware that in my previous review for Avengers: Age of Ultron, I commented that I am not a great fan of 3D. Though that is true, this flick is one of the few I would recommend watching in 3D cinemas!

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Verdict: Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the best action movies I have seen in a long time, currently holding a 98% "certified fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It has great fighting choreography, a lot of explosions, it is crazy violent and keeps you on the edge of your seat from the beginning to the end. This might be my favourite flick of the year. I will give this movie a 10 out of 10.