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George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road - a crazy car chase film |
Director: George Miller
Cast: Tom Hardy (Max Rockatansky), Charlize Theron
(Imperator Furiosa), Nicholas Hoult (Nux), Hugh Keays-Byrne (Immortan Joe),
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (The Splendid Angharad), Nathan Jones (Rictus
Erectus), Riley Keough (Capable), Zoƫ Kravitz (Toast the Knowing), Abbey Lee
(The Dag), Courtney Eaton (Cheedo the Fragile), Josh Helman (Slit)

In a post-apocalyptic future Australia, the world is a
ruined desert and basic requirements like water, greenery and fuel are more
valuable than anything. In a rocky outcrop, cult-leader Immortan Joe (Hugh
Keays-Byrne) rules one of the few populations by controlling access to the
water. “Road warrior” Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) is captured by Immortan Joe’s
warriors and put to work as a “blood bag” to transfuse into Immortan Joe’s
warriors. However, this coincides with a planned escape by Immortan Joe’s wives
(the few remaining women capable of conceiving children). Led by road warrior
Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), the women flee to find a mysterious
paradise in the wilderness. Cue an almighty chase and running battle between
Furiosa’s road carrier and Immortan Joe’s forces, desperate to reclaim the
wives.
Mad Max: Fury Road
is a bizarre, extreme, surreal thrill ride, a high-octane road chase, crammed
with action, thrills and dynamism. It’s directed with extraordinary vibrancy by
George Miller, who makes it fresh and scintillating. Miller crams the action
and design with an explosion of style. Everything is amped up to 11, from the
look to the characterisations and motivations. But what makes this such a
well-directed film is that Miller shoots much of it with careful, professional
clarity: so many other films would be cut with a frantic craziness, but this
has a polished traditionalism to it. Basically Miller knows the actual content
of the story is “insane” enough that he doesn’t need to gild the lily with
bizarre, swooping camera angles or choppy editing.
That’s partly why this film has had such a strong positive
reaction. While being insanely OTT, it’s actually quite an old-fashioned piece
of film-making, and it looks like a lot of it was shot for real on location,
using real practical stunts. This may or may not be the case, but it certainly
looks like this. And in an era where so many action films are about
superheroes, and crammed with special effects, to have a world where things
feel grimy and real, where the objects we are watching feel like they exist, is
like a breath of fresh air. The design throughout the film accentuates this
sense of reality. It makes things feel like they have depth and force. It
immediately adds stakes to the action.
That action takes place in a unique looking world. The
visuals in this film are crazy. The design of Immortan Joe’s half-nude soldiers,
with their silver paint aerosol and petrol smeared faces, is terrifyingly
cultish. The look of the many different vehicles is immediately striking, with
each being clearly of the same world, but each distinctive in look, like some Wacky
Races. The steampunkish mix of cobbled-together remains of technology to create
the cars and trucks is brilliantly done. It’s a film that looks like nothing
else, and shot with radiant streaks of yellows and blues, mixed with scenes
shot in almost painterly black and white. It’s an explosion of style, but not
straining too hard to force itself upon you like so many films do.
The film also has a simple structure and storyline, that
allows it to focus on the action. It’s slick, steamlined and very focused. The
villains are clear, and their motivations easy to understand. They are
presented with a certain depth, but their essential villainy is easy to have a
gut instinct against. This also helps us bond with our heroes – despite the
fact that most of the wives have only the most briefly sketched of characters. But
we totally understand their position, fear and desire for freedom. Just as the
film is a primal explosion of “fight or flight”, so are the feelings our heroes
carry. Everyone can relate to them.
It’s also great that this is an action film where the women
largely drive (literally!) much of the action. The film may have the Mad Max
name on it, but the true lead of the film is Furiosa. It’s her actions that
drive the film, it’s her conflicts that are at its heart, the film is her
journey and Max is largely along for the ride (again literally!). Charlize
Theron is very impressive in the lead, a strong warrior woman, but also someone
with a buried poetic soul and a clear emotional arc. Tom Hardy delivers as the grizzled
Max, but this is very much Theron’s film.
Mad Max: Fury Road
is an exciting and engrossing film. But it’s made with such professional
inspiration on the visuals that it invites people to read into it a lot more
depth than I think is actually there. It’s got such old-fashioned control and
brilliance to it, while being so explosive and vibrant, that it’s tempting to
read into it a thematic complexity. Let’s be honest, this is a chase movie.
It’s a hell of a chase movie, but it’s a chase movie.
It may be set in a world of post-apocalyptic
totalitarianism, but it’s not trying to tell us anything hugely original about
what such a world may be like. It creates such a world with huge inventiveness,
but it’s not an enlightening film. Similarly, this is a film that places women
at the centre of its action, but I’m not sure you could call it a film that has
much to say about feminism. Most of the women in this film are still defined
primarily by their breeding abilities. Furiosa may be the leader, but most of
the rest of the women are under her protection. The film does something
different with gender, but it also does a lot of quite traditional things.
It’s really tempting to see great symbolism in such a
dynamic and striking piece of film-making. But thematically there isn’t much
there. Miller directs a film that is brilliant too experience, so brilliant you
expect there to be more at its heart. In truth there isn’t really – it’s
largely what it appears to be on the tin. There’s nothing wrong with that
though. You just need to know what you are going to get. This is not some great
game changer of a motion picture, that will reinvent and reposition the genre.
It is a skilfully made and compelling chase movie, where a group of people run
to a point, turn around and head back, being chased all the way. It’s shot with
a near poetic, old-school brilliance – but it’s still just a chase movie.
Accept it as that – a high-octane action thriller – and you will be swept away.
Look to it for the thematic depth some have claimed it carries and you will be
disappointed.
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