Film Review: Mad Max - Fury Road
Director: George Miller
With: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron
15, 120mins
Mad Max Rockatansky returns to our screens after 30 years and not much has changed for the flaming galah.
The plot? It starts with a car chase. And that's pretty much it for two hours.
It's a post-apocalyptic Wacky Races across a vast, barren, water-free Outback as the real protagonist Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) searches for the Green Place.
Chuck in lots of dust, a chap playing a flame thrower guitar, crazy cut and shut vehicles, gender politics, innovative and insane weapons, gasoline and a bit more dust.
And it's a blast.
Original writer and director George Miller reboots his Mad Max series and does a sterling job of keeping quite a simple premise rollicking along. A big factor in this (aside from the frenetic editing) is the use of real stunts instead of CGI. Watching real metal cars go crash-bang-wallop into each other is much more satisfying than a computer facsimile; to borrow from Mark Kermode, these special effects have a heft and weight that would be lost if done completely in post-production.
Tom Hardy and his wandering accent may be in the title role but this is Theron's film; in fact all the female characters in this movie are the heroes compared to the knuckle-dragging men.
Going pedal-to-the-metal for two hours means it's an exhilarating if exhausting watch but if you're after a beautifully shot, edited and choreographed movie that isn't afraid to keep it simple then check out Mad Max: Fury Road in one of Cardiff's £4 cinemas (Vue & Premiere).
Rating: 3 Sprouts
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1 Comment – Post a comment
pranc_mynci
Commented 10 months ago - 23rd June 2015 - 10:28am
Ah.... I was so disappointed in this film. Barely any dialogue (and what there was was pretty strained (possibly due to the caveman-like existence, but still...). Two-hour car chase - as you say - is exactly what it was, and bizarrely split into a 'let's go here! oh hang on, let's just go back' plot. The only plus to watching this movie for me is that because we watched it 6 weeks after it came out, we were the only two people in the cinema and could rustle our popcorn to our hearts content.