![]() ![]() ![]() Miller defines his aesthetic through physical texture, tells story through action, and shows no interest in the routine of contemporary Hollywood spectacle. ![]() When the film does lean on computers, it’s to fill in the margins or summon the occasional dust storm. Real people cruise in real vehicles across real expanses of desert. Mad Max: Fury Road is just an explosive extended car chase, occasionally interrupted with interludes of economic character development and world-building.Įvery single dollar of Mad Max: Fury Road’s reported $150 million budget is in the frame at all times, but Miller is so unpretentious that you won’t catch the price tag. So they pile into her war rig with the emancipated girls and put pedal to the metal, with Joe’s legion of maniacs at their heels and Nux dangling to their tanker. By chance Furiosa and Max end up locking horns in the fracas, but they realize that each needs the other to stay alive. When one of his lieutenants, Furiosa (Theron), betrays him by liberating his trophy wives (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zöe Kravitz, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, and Courtney Eaton), he and his fleet of tricked-out apocalypse-mobiles pursue them posthaste. Joe is a festering representation of patriarchy who hoards a limitless supply of water from his parched subjects and maintains a fully stocked personal harem. MAD MAX FILM SERIES MOVIEHe’s on the run, natch, and as the movie starts he’s captured by lunatics who drag him back to a desert canyon fortress and turn him into a living IV bag for Nux (Nicholas Hoult), a soldier in the army of the wheezy, bigamist tyrant Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, returning to the series after playing the villain in the original film). Mad Max: Fury Road occurs an unknown number of days after the last chronicle of Max’s life and times. This is what happens when you lay out all your crazy on the screen at once: glorious, crackling entertainment. Try naming a modern blockbuster that has as much chutzpah as Mad Max: Fury Road. Miller knew it, too, so he decided to swing for the fences. But after maintaining a holding pattern for so long, “satisfactory” wouldn’t have passed muster. If Miller had simply aimed just above the line of “serviceable,” he still might have sated his audience’s action cravings. It’s “great,” perhaps even better, though piling on superlatives too quickly, too soon might do the film a disservice. Mad Max: Fury Road is better than just good. If it takes a movie three decades to galumph into theaters, the least you can hope for is that it ends up being good.Įxpecting more than just “good” feels like asking much, but Miller is clearly the generous type. When Miller showed San Diego Comic-Con attendees footage from the unfinished product in 2014, any and all initial doubt turned to buzzing fervor. The new film stars Tom Hardy as Max Rockatansky with Charlize Theron as his co-lead, a casting coup that earned goodwill from intrigued onlookers when first announced. If not for the passage of time, though, then George Miller’s career trajectory since 1985 may have initially been reason enough to regard the latest installment in the dystopian Mad Max series with caution. This summer, the Cinematheque celebrates the 40th anniversary of Mad Max’s first release with screenings of all four films, including a 3D showing of Fury Road.Thirty years is a long time to wait for a sequel. Along with Gibson’s last entry in the series, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and Miller’s Oscar-winning 2015 reboot, Mad Max: Fury Road, the four movies have been acclaimed for their imaginatively designed dystopias, increasingly elaborate action set-pieces and breathtaking chase sequences, and a sometimes hopeful vision of humanity. This follow-up, retitled The Road Warrior for North America, became a critical smash and a box office success. Despite this, the film gathered a cult following in America and around the world, prompting a sequel, the decidedly post-apocalyptic Mad Max 2. In the U.S., Mad Max was given a slapdash exploitation release and the voices of star Mel Gibson and the Australian cast were dubbed over with American accents. 1979 brought the release of one of the most influential and visionary movies in international film history, George Miller’s futuristic cop-revenge thriller Mad Max. ![]()
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