Friday, May 15, 2015

Mad Max: Fury Road - 3 1/2 stars


I don’t think I’ve seen the first three Mad Max movies all the way through.  I know I rented the first movie once.  I vaguely remember bits and pieces of it – I know there’s a scene where Mel Gibson handcuffs a guy to a motorcycle that’s about to explode and leaves him with a hack saw.  I don’t remember hardly anything from The Road Warrior, but Beyond Thunderdome was on HBO all the time when I was a kid. 

Fury Road is the fourth Mad Max movie, and it’s just incredible.  The movie drops you right in the middle of this post-apocalyptic world without giving us hardly any backstory.  All we know is that there is no more system of government, and gas and oil are hard to come by.  Max (now played by Tom Hardy) is captured by the War Boys, an army ruled by the tyrannical King Immortan Joe, who has a really cool breathing mask that looks like the grin of a skull. 

For the first half hour or so, Max is a prisoner.  He wears this iron mask over his face and he’s being used to supply blood to Nux (Nicholas Hoult).  When the War Boys head out to capture Furiosa (Charlize Theron), Max is tied to the front of Nux’s car like a hood ornament. 

The movie is basically one big chase, and it’s the most thrilling chase I think I’ve ever seen.  Furiosa and her War Rig are being chased by an army of War Boys led by King Joe.  Eventually Max will team up with Furiosa and help her try to get away.  The stunts in this movie were mostly practical rather than CGI, and it shows.  This movie was exhilarating and I saw things that I have never seen in a movie before.  The level of creativity and imagination used to bring the movie to life is just off the charts – the design of the vehicles, the look of the army, everything is just amazing to look at.  


Another thing I loved is the music.  It’s over the top at times but that just adds to the fun.  It’s got this old fashioned sweeping musical score with some heavy metal guitar added in there.  Make sure you see it movie on the biggest screen you can with the best sound possible.   

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