'Blu-ray or Bust'
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015, R, 120 minutes, VILLAGE
ROADSHOW/WARNER BROTHERS)
George Miller is a lunatic.
The man who brought us one of the greatest action films of
all time, THE ROAD WARRIOR, has tried to outdo himself. Yes, it has been decades since we saw Max
Rockatansky roaring across our screens, and we the viewers are the better for
it.
Tom Hardy stars as “Mad Max”, a widower ex-cop trying to
survive the apocalypse. He encounters
Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron, unrecognizable yet still awesome), a woman
trying to escape The Citadel with five women who have been used as breeding
stock for the sickly warlord Immortan Joe (and if you think Miller’s knack for
coming up with interesting names is the awesome part of his personality, you
ain’t seen nothing yet—one of the character’s names is “Toast the Knowing”…). What results is a carefully choreographed
ballet of mayhem.
This film starts with an action sequence, moves on to a
chase scene, gives you three minutes to breathe, then jams a race scene into
your gob. It is two glorious hours of
the best practical effects and stunt work you will see this year. The action does the talking; there is not a
whole lot of dialogue in this film, but you won’t notice; Miller makes it a
point of telling you in the special features that these characters really only
talk when it is necessary. He gets his
point across with action, and allows his actors to express everything you need
to know by their reactions to the destruction going on around them.
There really is no weak link in the characters to speak
of. Whereas BEYOND THUNDERDOME was an
exercise in egos, FURY is a love letter to the vehicular stunts and feministic
escapism of the seventies. No, there is
not a whole lot of orated exposition on the plight of post-apocalyptic
women. You know what has been done to
them is wrong, and you root for them for reasons other than that they are all
gorgeous and half-naked.
The special features on the disc are all must-sees. One thing you will notice while watching the
film is the attention to detail; the documentaries included drive that point
home. From the construction of the
vehicles to the deconstruction of the characters, there are so many minute
details you will have missed the first time that you’ll want to revisit the
film again to try and catch it all.
This is a must on Blu-ray; explosions, flying dust and bodies, and the
desert never looked as pretty as it does here.
While another MAX film has been announced (titled THE
WASTELAND), a release date is unknown.
I’m perfectly fine with it taking him another decade or two to come out
if it means the same amount of love he poured into this outing. There’s nothing like an insanely gleeful
post-apocalypse to get the adrenaline pumping.
Film Grade: A
Special Features: A+
Blu-ray Necessary: Most definitely
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