Movie Review - Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max: Fury Road ***½ (out of 5) (R) Between 1979 -85, George Miller wrote and directed three post-apocalyptic adventures starring Mel Gibson as the titular protagonist, scrambling for survival in arid wastelands run by either brutal warlords or Tina Turner. Each was long on mayhem and short on other story elements. All were big hits. Now Gibson’s career could be described as rather post-apocalyptic, so this revival of his character features a younger avatar, Tom Hardy, in another struggle for freedom and justice against overwhelming odds. Max is captured in the opening chase. He soon gets the chance to join forces with Charlize Theron (who wouldn’t?) in a prolonged (at least 70% of the running time) escape through barren lands, zealously pursued by hordes of maniacal minions with surprisingly powerful and diverse weapons and vehicles for such resource-starved environs.

Aye, there’s the rub. This one’s all about the adrenaline. Moviegoers who require heavy doses of plot, character development, etc. should look elsewhere. Those simply craving a pinball/video game-style start-to-finish slugfest, will emerge as happy campers. Since I watched the first three so long ago, I’m not sure if this is a revised origin tale, or a sequel. It really don’t matter, dude. Max’s periodic voiceovers provide all the backstory needed, even for franchise first-timers.

The f/x are stunning. In audio-visual terms, Cecil B. DeMille might be wishing he’d been born half a century later so he could have used today’s tech in his movies, though he’d still have diverted more attention to storytelling.

Soda sales should spike from two hours of empathic throat parching. A 3-D screen would surely make this epic-scale escapist (by topic and genre) fantasy even more exciting. If that’s not an option, go for the biggest screen and best sound system in range, because this ain’t the sort of flick that works nearly as well on handheld or desktop media. In this context, size DOES matter. (5/15/15)