So please allow me the occasional hood-kicking VROOM as I
assure you that the fourth installment in George Miller's sand-choked,
rust-coated, post-apocalyptic odyssey is as vibrant, wild, nasty, and fun as
any of its preceding entries - THE ROAD WARRIOR included.
With Tom Hardy replacing Mel Gibson in the role of
"Mad" Max Rockatansky, FURY ROAD begins as Max is kidnapped by a herd
of ghoulish, tumor-laced War Boys who serve under the cruel, aging Wasteland
water magnate King Immortan Joe (MAD
MAX's Hugh Keays-Byrne).
Caged and siphoned as a source of fresh transfusion blood
for Joe's irradiated army, Max is given a final chance at redemption when one
of Immortan's generals - Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) - absconds with
the King's five wives in an attempt to
lead them to freedom and her fabled verdant birthland, "The Green
Place."
To describe FURY ROAD as a two-hour car chase would be as
reductive as summarizing JAWS as an unscheduled fishing trip... at the same time,
once Immortan and his rolling armada of jerry-rigged death machines roar out in
pursuit of Furiosa, the movie rarely slows, keeping character beats tight and
dialogue spare amid a rolling Blitzkrieg of vehicular homicide, gas fires,
chain whips, chain guns and chainsaws all swung, tossed, blasted and shattered
across the searing, sun-beaten ambers of day and the deep blue oblivion of desert
nights.
To those fearing either an exhausting monotony of car-on-car
violence or the inscrutable digital kludge of Bay's TRANSORMERS, know that FURY
ROAD's action is balletic vehicular anarchy, with choreography as precise as it
is sadistic, crisply shot and boundlessly creative in perpetually uncovering
fresh cruelties of physics.
All of it’s enhanced by a pounding, audacious score from
Junkie XL (300) that marries majestic
high fantasy with the Viking throb of heavy mallets on treated hides.
Where the cast is concerned, Hardy imbues Max with the
perfect ratio of stoic grit to brutalized humanity - a broken man and reluctant
savior, driven perpetually into the fray by horrific visions of his murdered
daughter. Theron's lithe, grease-anointed Furiosa is Max's hopeful
counterpoint, a woman driven forward not by the weight of what she's lost, but
rather the gravity of what she still has to lose.
Defecting War Boy Nux (Nicholas Hoult) and the alluring, mysterious
quintet of wives (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Zöe Kravitz, Abbey
Lee and Courtney Eaton) round out the protagonists, while Keays-Byrne, a
lumbering goblin of physical bulk and
deranged enthusiasm, inhabits Immortan Joe with a savage, wild-eyed energy .
From a screenwriting standpoint, FURY ROAD's concerted lack
of exposition serves as a testament to Miller's (and co-writers Brendan
McCarthy’s and Nico Lathouris’) respect for his audience and, of course, his
ability to create such a visually rich and wildly immersive fictional world.
Every vehicle, every makeshift weapon, every bizarre, eclectic character
trapping, from the servos of Furiosa's mechanical arm to the Cheshire Cat
rictus of Immortan's skeletal breathing
mask, is beautifully designed and constructed.
By relying as much as possible on practical effects - flesh-and-blood
pierced, shaved and leering maniacs driving full-functioning spike- and
sawblade-covered behemoths - Miller ensures that the Wasteland not only looks
amazing, each screeching metallic crunch all the more bone-shaking for the
weight of the metal behind it, but also rattles and growls with unspoken
history.
To provide any
slogging explanation around the dead, feral Earth - its chrome idols, gear oil
scripture and unslakable thirst for petrol and blood - would undermine the
brazen, giddy insanity of it all.
The truth is, we as an audience must share Max's madness:
reluctant sanity in the face of chaos. To remain sane, it's crucial we believe
in that chaos but never fully understand it, lest it become somehow
relatable... lest it, in some small, fatal way, appear sane.
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. VROOM VROOM VRRRRRRRRRRRRR. P-KOW!!!!! PSHHHHH-BOOM!!!!!
(4 out 4 Stars)
Awesome in every way!
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