Tom Hardy as Mad Max and Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa in George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road”. Photo by Jasin Boland.
With his incredibly low budget 1979 film Mad Max, director George Miller all but invented the post-apocalyptic action film genre. With two sequels (1981’s The Road Warrior and 1985’s Beyond Thunderdome), Miller established himself as a visionary filmmaker, simultaneously launching Mel Gibson’s acting career. After venturing about as far away from his dystopian Australian wasteland as possible with his family-friendly Babe and Happy Feet movies, Miller returns to the Mad Max franchise 30 years later with Mad Max: Fury Road. And it’s more than just my feet that are happy about this fact.
With Tom Hardy now wearing the rugged leather jacket of Mad Max, this lone wolf is reluctantly (and literally) dragged into the weird world of King Immortan Joe, who is trying to repopulate the desert by impregnating his five beautiful wives (Zoë Kravitz, Riley Keough, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Abbey Lee and Courtney Eaton) as many times as possible. Powered by an army of pasty bald slaves known as his War Boys, Joe’s Metropolis-like city controls an underground water source, which he, of course, deprives of the hoi polloi with warnings of the masses becoming addicted to hydration. It should be pointed out that, though there is no indication that there is any connection between the two characters, Joe is played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played Toecutter in the first Mad Max film. Considering the definitive demise Toecutter suffered at the end of that film, and the fact that Joe is obscured by fiberglass armor and a sinister skeleton-like mask for Fury Road‘s duration, it really wouldn’t make much sense for Keays-Byrne’s appearance here to be more than a subversive cameo for fans of the original trilogy.
Former WWE wrestler Nathan Jones portrays Rictus Erectus and Hugh Keays-Byrne (Toecutter form the original “Mad Max”) is Immortan Joe in “Fury Road”. Photo by Jasin Boland.
When Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) heads out on what appears to be a routine water transport, it soon becomes apparent that she has other intentions as she veers her armored rig off path into hostile desert territories. The War Boys give chase, with Nux (Nicholas Hoult) being the most determined to impress the king by returning his wives, who are stowed away within Furiosa’s truck. With the captured Max chained to the front of his hot rod war machine, and intravenously connected to him for strength, Nux sprays chrome stuff on his teeth (not sure what that’s about) and is brave (or stupid) enough to follow Furiosa into a sandstorm filled with fiery tornados and other deadly dangers.
Max awakens, still chained to Nux, after the storm passes and in a moment of comic relief finds what looks to be a mirage as Joe’s lovely wives are splashing each other with a water hose like Playmates in the Playboy Mansion grotto. That fantasy dissipates quickly as Max, Furiosa and Nux engage in an awesome fight, only to find that Joe and his army are still in close pursuit. I forgot to mention that part of Joe’s war party is a towering truck with a wall of war drummers on the back and a demented Pan’s Labyrinth-looking guitar player (played by Australian musician iOTA) on the front. This ridiculous (in a good way) detail amuses me throughout the movie, and the guitarist is eventually rather instrumental (pun intended) in the outcome of the final battle.
Nicholas Hoult is Nux, a War Boy-turned-hero in “Mad Max: Fury Road”. Photo by Jasin Boland
Anyway, Max, Nux, the brides and Furiosa (and her mechanical hand) run into numerous obstacles as they flee Joe, the perverted People Eater (John Howard), the Bullet Farmer (Richard Carter) and the Lord Humungus-in-training-like Prince Rictus Erectus (former WWE star Nathan Jones) in hopes of finding a mythical place where water flows freely, plants grow greenly and people live in harmony. Amidst the explosive battles involving modified monster trucks, dirt bike warriors and other armored-car action are things that the Mad Max films aren’t really known for: subtleties. The most notable of which is the occasional glimmer (of hope?) in the eyes of the protagonists. Even Max and Furiosa, the most cynical heroes in this pessimistic world, show these shimmers as they find an unlikely group of old women allies and prepare to take the fight directly to Joe and his army. With the odds stacked against them, the element of surprise is about all they have going for them as they realize the paradise they are looking for can only be found if they take out Joe and assume power over his water supply and crops.
The grand finale, much like the fast-paced fight scenes throughout the film, employ some of the best use of CGI I think I’ve ever seen. With Fury Road, Miller has found a way to provide an enormous spectacle while maintaining the indie grittiness of the original films. Hardy evokes the primal lunacy of the Mad Max character better than I expected him to, portraying him as the slightly disturbed loner he’s always been. If Fury Road is any indication of Max’s future adventures, we have plenty of dystopian delights to look forward to.