Anthony's Film Review - Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

This action film is jam-packed with intensity and keeps us riveted...

If you have an action movie that has not much else, it's usually quite hard to make it worthwhile. That's because the average person who enjoys this genre tends to like movies that have something else to admire besides the action, namely the story, the characters, or both. A movie that is mostly action has to deliver it in a way that isn't stale or unimpressive, just to reach the same bar set for a satisfying movie experience. In my mind, an action movie that has only a bit of plot and character elements is not automatically a bad movie. If something about the action really catches my eye, I'll still give it a seal of approval.

Mad Max: Fury Road is an action movie whose plot can easily be summed up like this: going from point A to point B without getting killed. The nature of that dangerous journey can also be described in a brief manner. In post-apocalyptic Australia, a woman named Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron) has the task of conducting supply trades at two locations, Gas Town and the Bullet Farm. But once she begins leading a convoy away from the citadel of her settlement, she goes off course. Her real intention is to free five young women, all forcibly married to a brutal warlord and serving as mothers producing boys who will be indoctrinated to become warriors. Immediately, Furiosa is being hunted down for this crime, and she soon finds herself allied with the title character of Max (played by Tom Hardy) who is initially imprisoned before breaking free from captivity.

To appreciate the action, you have to first appreciate the production and costume design. Given the post-apocalyptic setting, all of the surviving humans have to salvage whatever they find in order to stay alive. That means amassing different kinds of weapons and ammunition. That also means collecting and modifying vehicles to traverse the harsh desert. This is where the movie gets visually creative and impressive. There are lots of cars, dune buggies, monster trucks, and big rigs that have accessories such as flaming engines, sharp spikes, metal chains, and mounted guns. As for the way the characters look, the adversaries stand out because of costumes and makeup that make them look grotesque. For example, the warlord I mentioned earlier has a skeletal mask for his lower face. Plus, the male warriors are topless men with scary makeup, and there's even one scary-looking masked guy playing an electric guitar to rally the troops.

All of this provides a stage for a lot of different things to occur in action scenes, which primarily take place in, on, and around moving vehicles. This movie certainly has typical kinds of action, like shooting at a vehicle from another and engaging in hand-to-hand combat while on top of a vehicle. But there are also plenty of moments that make the action more interesting to watch and less likely to be stale, such as spitting extra gasoline into an engine in order to outrun another vehicle, attempting to kill a foe by forcing his head to the ground moving fast beneath, snapping chains attached to harpoons already shot into a vehicle, and the use of traps to disable a few vehicles as well as slow down others behind them. Speaking of creative action, there's also a good action scene with physical combat that is fun to see because one character is chained to another while the fighting takes place.

The only other thing that deserves mention is the director, George Miller. It's not just how well he engages the audience with this movie. It's also the fact that he also directed the original Mad Max films from the 70s and 80s. At the time I saw this movie, I had not seen those originals and therefore cannot discuss comparisons between them and Fury Road. I will say, though, that I think it's great to have the same director return three decades later for another follow-up to the same movie series. This is definitely not a remake or reboot with an entirely different crew, which runs the risk of not being faithful to the vision of the original filmmakers.

Overall, Mad Max: Fury Road was a satisfying action movie experience. I mentioned before that there is not much plot and character development here, but I should note that there are a few non-action moments that I appreciated, like the revelation of Furiosa's origin and where the dangerous journey ultimately ends up. Still, it's the action and the overall look of the film that make it worthwhile. Thanks to the director who approaches it creatively and not merely conventionally, Mad Max: Fury Road burns with excitement and takes you along an intense ride.

Anthony's Rating:

For more information about Mad Max: Fury Road, visit the Internet Movie Database.