Mad Max is the first movie I ever saw. Road Warrior is one of my favorite movies of all time. I’m not even going to pretend I can be objective about this one… just let me gush.
Fury Road is a two hour movie with about eight minutes of dialogue and comes from a filmmaker who thankfully hasn’t learned the “right” way to make a Hollywood blockbuster. Nothing about it is formulaic. Movies as bold as Fury Road make me feel retroactively cheated by more typical films like The Age of Ultron.
Tom Hardy and Charlize Theoron share equal billing in the opening credits—it’s every bit Imperator Furiosa’s film as it is Max’s. Hugh Keays-Bryne, who played Toecutter in the original film, returns as Immortan Joe, a villain who gives Hannibal Lector and Darth Vader a run for their money. Nicholas Hoult (yes, the kid from About a Boy) is nearly unrecognizable as Nux, the famished maniac who proclaims in the trailers: “Oh, what a day! What a lovely day!”
Within minutes of the opening shot, Max’s trademark Interceptor is smeared across the wasteland by the War Boys, presumably the biggest-baddest gang around. Max is captured and turned into a “blood bag” for Nux; as all War Boys are the biological children of Immortan Joe, many share his blood deficiencies and require frequent transfusions. When Furiosa smuggles Immortan Joe’s unwilling wives out of the compound on a big rig, the War Boys give chase, chaining Max to the front of a souped-up car. The chase begins and it doesn’t stop until the movie’s over.
Director George Miller has been trying to make this for twenty years. It shows. You can clearly see the decades of thought enriching every minute of screentime. Each scene is significantly different than the last, despite using the same three elements throughout: a desert, vehicles, and a huge cast of sickly-looking psychopaths. I always cherish a movie that shows me one thing I’ve never seen before. Fury Road does something new roughly every five to ten minutes. I haven’t been this wowed by a mainstream movie since the bridge sequence in True Lies over twenty years ago.
So many action directors working today, all of which are younger than Miller, should be envious and perhaps a little ashamed. This is one of the big ones. This is what keeps me going.
The Goug' Blog 
I saw this last week, and I think your review is spot on, and I completely agree with the use of the word 'maniacal'. Personally I would have liked to have seen more dialogue, but do you think that would have defeated the point of the film? I'd be interested to hear your views!
LikeLike
Usually when we get a movie with wall-to-wall action, I feel like I need the breaks for dialogue. I'm not sure why, but I never felt that way with this one (that quiet moment between one of the wives and Nux actually felt kind of out of place to me). Anything that can be that relentless without ultimately boring me is unique.
I don't think additional dialogue could have defeated the point of the film, but I can't think of anything else that needed said either. It's apparent there's a lot of worldbuilding going on in the background and most movies would have appointed a character to explain every bit of it. I feel like this one is going to be a movie I notice something new in every time I watch it. Honestly, I forgot how excited I could get during a movie and if this one has any shortcomings, I'm too blind to see them.
LikeLike