Mad Max Fury Road (9/10): Geroge Miller's vision perfectly executed in this action pounding orchestra of a film

“As the world fell it was hard to know who was more crazy. Me... Or everyone else.”

To describe George Miller’s fourth post-apocalyptic Mad Max film as crazy would be an understatement because it is one of those rare over the top and unique action films that keeps you at the edge of your seat during its entire runtime with fantastic car chases and inventive fighting scenes that feel like a breath of fresh air in an era dominated by CGI effects. The visuals absolutely stun you and Miller’s amazing vision of this apocalyptic wasteland is beautifully captured through the camera. It may have taken 30 years for this sequel to be released, but it is a huge improvement over Beyond Thunderdome and it manages to build on what The Road Warrior had achieved by introducing a much more chaotic world and colorful characters. Fury Road works both ways as either a sequel or a reboot, and it erases most of the problems I had with Max’s character in the previous film. This is a return to what Miller had done in The Road Warrior, but with a much higher budget to work with and that allowed his vision to be fully fulfilled here. Three more Mad Max films are already in the talks and I can’t wait to embark with Max on his next adventures. This is going to be a very difficult film to top and so far it’s the best 2015 has to offer.

In Fury Road, Tom Hardy replaces Mel Gibson for the lead role of Max, a wondering warrior who’s still coping with the loss of his wife and son as he travels through the post-apocalyptic deserted wasteland. The film begins with a group of bandits chasing Max who eventually capture him and take him to The Citadel, where a ruthless leader named Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) controls the water supply for the masses that have gathered below the heights of the mountain where he is based. Joe doesn’t just control the water supply, he also has a large army of War Boys who he has trained to sacrifice themselves willingly for his service, farming women who breed their breast milk, and even several beautiful wives to give him children. Joe has created quite an empire, and Max has been enslaved to serve as a blood donor for the injured War Boys. We are introduced to this crazy place and its rules as Joe sends his trusted lieutenant, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) on a local errand with her fuel filled rig to Gasland. However, she  decides to take another route and her intentions are soon revealed. She is helping some of Joe’s wives escape from their enslavement promising to lead them to the green lands. When Joe discovers that she has betrayed him he sends all his boys out on a desperate chase and that includes Nux (Nicholas Hoult), one of the War Boys who is using Max as his personal blood bag. Nux chains Max to the front of his vehicle and brings him along the desperate and nonstop chase that ensues. For the next two hours Fury Road is basically one extensive chase that will get the entire audiences’ blood pumping.  

I’ve praised Miller’s vision and his direction, as well as the spectacular action set pieces he has crafted, but it wouldn’t do this film justice if the cast didn’t receive its share of praise as well. It isn’t easy to fill the shoes of such an iconic character like Mad Max, but Tom Hardy pulled it off in a very convincing matter. As much as I like Mel Gibson, I have to give Hardy a lot of praise for delivering such an entertaining performance. He is one of my favorite actors working today. It was also great to see Hugh Keays-Byrne back in a Mad Max film playing a different character this time, but he absolutely nailed the menacing role of Joe. Nicholas Hoult was also a pleasant surprise, but perhaps the greatest addition to this franchise was Charlize Theron’s Furiosa who injects the film with a very much needed feminist tone. Theron delivers perhaps the strongest and most memorable role in the movie and she is one kick-ass action star. It helped that she got a lot of action scenes where she actually got to do something instead of being the damsel in distress. The look of the film is also breathtaking, and the way that Miller envisions this world is simply fantastic. The cool vehicles are built from all sorts of scrappy metals and materials you’d collect in the wasteland. Everything about this film is simply fantastic and the action scenes don’t disappoint one bit. You will feel the rush from the very opening scene and it will continue long after the credits begin to roll. Fury Road is the best film of the franchise.   

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (5/10): Almost worth it for the Dome sequence alone.

“Now, when men get to fighting, it happens here! And it finishes here! Two men enter; one man leaves.”

Everything I loved about the first Mad Max sequel is what is missing in this third installment, Beyond Thunderdome, which is the weakest entry of the trilogy. I was surprised to discover that this film was so warmly received by critics in 1985 when it came out because I felt like they changed the entire structure of the series and the Max character. Whereas Mel Gibson played Max as a quiet and antisocial character in The Road Warrior, here he seems to enjoy chatting with others and transforms himself into a completely different person. Beyond Thunderdome also lacks some of the spectacular choreographed vehicle chases that the previous films had and which made the franchise such a hit. It isn’t until the final 20 minutes of the film that we actually get these spectacular chases and by that time I really didn’t care too much for the characters. It’s unfortunate because George Miller’s vision of this post-apocalyptic world is intelligently designed, but somehow the characters and the story arch take some absurd turns. The film itself seems like it’s divided into two separate movies. In the first half we are introduced to Bartertown, a civilization that is being built in the middle of the dessert, and then the second half takes place in the middle of an oasis where a group of young teenagers and children are patiently waiting for a savior to lead them home. These two stories didn’t feel like they belonged in a same movie together and the film takes an incoherent turn from what it was doing in the previous Mad Max movies. This seems to be a much more family friendly film and somehow the producers convinced Miller to include the Max character so they could bank on the success of the franchise, but it feels like a completely different story.

Beyond Thunderdome begins with Max (Mel Gibson) traveling through the dessert having his vehicle towed by a group of camels when all of a sudden a plane flies so close to him that it knocks him off the road. In a matter of seconds the pilot, Jedediah (Bruce Spence), jumps off the plane and steals his vehicle while his son flies the plane back home. Max is left with nothing in the middle of the vast wasteland. Fortunately he discovers that there is a nearby city called Bartertown where travelers exchange goods. The city is ruled by Aunty (Tina Turner) who is trying to bring back civilization after a nuclear war has nearly wiped out the entire population of the world. Of course in order to build this civilized city she governs the place by controlling the population with soldiers and slaves. She can’t run the city on her own however, because the city needs energy which is powered by Master Blaster who is using pig manure to produce methane. Master Blaster is actually two characters, Master (Angelo Rossitto), a midget who rides on a giant’s back named Blaster (Paul Larsson). Master is the brains, while Blaster is the brute force. Auntie wants Blaster out of the picture so she can control Master along with the rest of the city on her own. That is where Max comes in handy because she soon discovers that he is a talented warrior who might just be able to defeat the monster. He promises Max vehicle and gasoline if he accepts to face off Blaster in a death duel inside the Thunderdome, the place where all problems are settled and justice is served. The film takes some unexpected turns along the way leading Max through the dessert once again where he is saved by a group of tribal children who seem to confuse him for Captain Walker, a man who supposedly promised to lead them back to civilization. 

The film suffers an extremely rare tonal shift once Max arrives at the oasis where the tribal children live, but it never ceases to entertain. The Thunderdome scene is by far the best action sequence of the movie and the film is almost worth recommending just for that. It’s an inventive fight scene that is expertly choreographed and shot through some great camera angles. The final twenty minutes of the film are action packed, but it comes a bit too late. It’s in these action scenes that George Miller’s direction seems to excel, but the narrative structure and character development does suffer as the film tries to bring all these different archs together in an unconvincing and none-cohesive manner. The sequel seemed to have lost the heart and soul of Miller’s previous visionary post-apocalyptic world, but I’ll still give the film credit for trying to do something completely different from the previous sequel. Unfortunately that inventiveness didn’t pay off and I would’ve preferred Miller stick closer to the world he had envisioned in The Road Warrior. I didn’t care too much for the villains in this film either and that is why I found this to be the weakest entry of the series. 

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (9/10): A sequel that builds and improves on their predecessor.

“I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land. But most of all, I remember The Road Warrior. The man we called Max.”

After having enjoyed Mad Max, I wasn’t expecting to fall in love with its sequel, but The Road Warrior actually blew me away and I found it to be a much better film than its predecessor. I had thought that Mad Max had already established the post-apocalyptic world in the Australian wastelands, but in Mad Max 2 the world has become much more chaotic and there is no room for civilization whatsoever. It’s still a low budget film, but director George Miller had more room to work with here and establish his vision of this crazy world. There is also more character development and despite not being entirely convinced by Mel Gibson’s performance in the first film, I found him much more charismatic here and I can now understand why he became such a bankable actor during the following decades. There is actually a better story in The Road Warrior which plays out like a Western. Mel Gibson plays the loner Max who doesn’t say much and seems to only care for himself. He arrives at an encampment where the few surviving members are trying their best to keep things civilized despite being surrounded by a group of violent bikers led by Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson) who are in need of their fuel refinery. Max makes a deal with the leader of the camp, Pappagallo (Michael Preston) to bring a truck back to the camp that will allow them to haul the tanker in exchange for all the gas he can take with him. Max is their only hope and he exits the compound while trying to escape Humungus and his men. That is how in a way the film follows the basic Western genre conventions with this mysterious man showing up as the only hope for the somewhat defenseless campers against a threatening enemy. However, Miller changes the horses for fast paced vehicles and guns for crossbows and sharp boomerangs. There aren’t any cowboys or indians here, but rather all sort of wacky and crazy characters using whatever objects they’ve found in the wasteland as their wardrobe in this post-apocalyptic world.

Mel Gibson has very few lines in this film and he appears to be interested in himself, but his charm easily wins us over. He is in a way an anti-hero, but since he shares the same enemy in common with the campers he ends up finding people he can relate to. Max has suffered a lot and lost many loved ones so he prefers to be a loner and not make new friends. In this sequel he faces a much more menacing enemy with Humungus and his gang. One particular stand out in the villain role is Wez (Vernon Wells) who is probably the craziest character in the film. Max finds two misfit allies in the Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence), who at first tried to steal from him and then became Max’s prisoner, and in a young brave boy known as the Feral Kid (Emil Minty) whose weapon of choice is a star boomerang. The performances in this film are all solid and the action scenes are incredibly exciting and intense. The final twenty minutes of the film had me at the edge of my seat and the car chases were extremely well shot. The score of the film does feel a bit heavy handed and manipulative, but considering this was filmed in 1981 I have to give it a lot of credit. I had an incredible time with this film and am even more excited for the upcoming Mad Max sequel. It will be hard to top this, but I won’t complain if it’s at least half as good as Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.

This is one of those rare sequels that builds and improves on their predecesor. The vision of this post-apocalyptic world is much better realized here and despite all the crazy characters the film still takes itself seriously. It is violent and there is actually a lot at stake, which is uncommon in action films these days. It is over the top in many ways, but it works extremely well in this world and I can’t think of better chase sequences than there are here. The film has non-stop crazy action and it’s a very entertaining experience. I absolutely recommend this!  

Mad Max (7/10): A totally bonkers but entertaining experience!

“I am the Nightrider. I'm a fuel injected suicide machine. I am the rocker, I am the roller, I am the out-of-controller!”

Due to the upcoming Mad Max sequel starring Tom Hardy, I decided to watch the previous films because I had never had the opportunity to do so. Mad Max was a surprisingly fun experience, despite its low budget and cheesy effects (which when you take into account that they were made in 1979 are actually quite good). A relatively unknown Mel Gibson played the titular role in this apocalyptic future where the Australian police force is doing what they can to uphold the law against the various menacing gangs in the wastelands. The film opens with a car chase involving a couple of cops and a cop-killer known as Nightrider. He has stolen a police vehicle and is crazily driving through the streets while threatening the police force through their radio. The stage is set for this wildly violent world set in a decaying society. Despite the very low production budget that director George Miller had to work with, he was able to pull off some impressive car stunts, which feel quite fresh now that we’ve been exposed to so much CGI. When the cops are unable to catch up to the Nightrider, Max shows up to save the day. He is a police man who has grown weary of the violence and wants out. He’d much rather spend his days in retirement with his beautiful wife, Jessie (Joanne Samuel), and their young boy. But somehow the chief and his partner Jim Goose (Steve Bisley) always manage to convince Max to stay on the force because they consider him to be the hero figure that the society needs. However, things begin to get even more hectic when a group of bikers arrive in town to avenge their friend, Nightrider. Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) is the leader of the band and they begin to spread more fear and caos in the streets. The premise is set for a fun and bonkers film.

Mad Max had all the right ingredients to become a cult-classic film thanks in most part to the fantastic direction from George Miller who made this, his first feature film, with an extremely low budget. Some of the story elements feel very familiar now, but you can’t help but feel intrigued by this apocalyptic world and the way each car stunt was executed to perfection. By the time the sequel came out, Mad Max was viewed by more people and its cult status quickly died down. And that is why now, 30 years after the third film in the franchise came out we are getting an expensive Blockbuster sequel which surprisingly looks very promising. I expected Mad Max to be more than anything a star vehicle for Mel Gibson who ruled the box office during the 80’s and 90’s with his irresistible charm, but surprisingly this break out role for him didn’t focus so much on him. It is more about the world that Miller creates, and Gibson didn’t really have to do or say much. This isn’t a film you can go back to and say that he was a star in the making because everything that made him so popular in his next films was watered down here. He gives a solid and restrained performance, but I found the performances from Hugh Keays-Byrne and Steve Bisley to be the most memorable ones. Mad Max is far from being perfect, but you can see how many modern films borrowed heavily from its violent story. Mad Max is a futuristic sci-fi film that borrows common themes from the vigilante revenge films we’ve been so exposed to all these years.