Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) by The Critical Movie Critics

Movie Review: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)


Mad Max: Fury Road has an eclectic collection of keywords listed on its main IMDb page like: “desert,” “feminism,” “pregnant woman,” “exploding car,” “peak oil,” and “dark future.” Oddly enough, they’re all fairly accurate. The film, marking the fourth installment in George Miller’s “Mad Max” series (and the first without Mel Gibson), follows Max (now played by Tom Hardy, “Locke”), prisoner and blood bag for the sick War Boy Nux (Nicholas Hoult, “Jack The Giant Slayer”), a soldier for the cult that has taken reign since society’s post-apocalyptic collapse. When Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron, “Prometheus”) kidnaps King Immortan Joe’s (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who interestingly was the main antagonist, Toecutter, in the original “Mad Max”) Five Wives — women he’d selected specifically for breeding (of which Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is one) — Nux, and consequently Max, must ride into battle to stop her from making it across the desert into her homeland, a place in which order can be restored.

Ultimately, this is one of those movies that are fun to describe, but hard to write about. Mad Max: Fury Road is essential in-the-moment entertainment. Nothing sticks after having an hour or two to cool off, but George Miller’s direction makes the desolate drives fun to unravel. His world-building is pretty attentive — from the over-exaggerated vehicles and costumes to its dialects and all the sand in-between — and Furiosa is engaging enough, if only because she has a robotic arm and is played by Charlize Theron. There are apparently a lot of people pissed off because Furiosa gets to play the hero role. Max himself is pretty useless for a lot of the action (being that he’s strapped to the front of his leech’s car). That doesn’t bother me. Tom Hardy’s “man of few words, many actions” archetype isn’t very interesting and the screenwriters — Miller, alongside Brendan McCarthy and Nick Lathouris — do an awful job pumping him full of pseudo-depth using cliché flashbacks alluding to the death of his wife and kid.

War Boy Nux, however, is one part of Mad Max: Fury Road that survives the illusion of cool; he’s also, ironically, one of the few characters who wasn’t made to be explicitly badass. There are some genuine conceits with him, like the theme of cultural brainwashing that comes up when he realizes that King Immortan Joe might be playing his kingdom for fools. Hoult treats Nux’s instability with both fireworks and humility, which is why his character can resonate over Max and Furiosa’s one-note performances. Miller, who has perfected the art of visual eye candy — doing so once again here — doesn’t realize it takes more than a shot of the lead heroine crying and some PTSD suffering from the other to tell a genuine story. Unfortunately there will always be fans who, much like Nux, will swarm to defend a franchise that has swerved right into “Transformers” territory to tell me how wrong I am.

Critical Movie Critic Rating:
3 Star Rating: Average

3

Movie Review: Der Samurai (2014)
Movie Review: Far from the Madding Crowd (2015)



'Movie Review: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)' have 17 comments

  1. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 16, 2015 @ 11:19 pm Kraven

    Holy shit!

    If an action movie could give me a hard-on this would be the one to do it!

  2. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 16, 2015 @ 11:36 pm barnie

    Everyone is gushing over this but I don’t see it. Crazy concepts and designs make not a movie that withstands the test of time and all this is is an overactive imagination puking up depravity on screen.

  3. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 16, 2015 @ 11:43 pm Food Fellow

    mindless and outrageous fun. i loved every minute of it.

  4. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 17, 2015 @ 12:01 am DreadRocket

    Australians are insane.

  5. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 17, 2015 @ 12:42 am Mickey

    I haven’t had this much fun at the movies in years. It’s just balls to the walls action with a few minutes to catch your breath in between.

  6. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 17, 2015 @ 12:54 am Anson

    This is the Mad Max movie George Miller always wanted to make.

  7. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 17, 2015 @ 1:18 am Emma Paige

    People need to get over their hangups with strong female characters. Charlize Theron does a better job with Furiosa than most men do with their action personas. There is nothing one-note about her – she exhibited strength AND emotion.

    • The Critical Movie Critics

      May 17, 2015 @ 4:44 pm biCORNER

      The backlash if there really is any is that Max plays a more subsidiary role to Furiosa in his movie.

  8. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 17, 2015 @ 4:14 am Gabe Catalano

    You’re giving this a 3/5 because the characters were not multidimensional enough? You missed the point of it. Miller purposely minimized the character element – MMFR is meant to be an all out action movie for adrenaline junkies..

    It gets a 7/5 from me.

  9. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 17, 2015 @ 8:40 am JMach

    Freaking awesome I’m going to see it again today

  10. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 17, 2015 @ 8:53 am AlmA

    Mad Max: Fury Road delivered everyting it promised. Times 50.

  11. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 17, 2015 @ 10:08 am preysurge

    Fury Road
    Road Warrior
    Mad Max
    Thunderdome

  12. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 17, 2015 @ 1:38 pm rehipez

    Don’t let Mad Max Fury Road suffer the same fate as Dredd. If we want R-rated action we’ve got to support it. Get to the theatre to see it!

  13. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 17, 2015 @ 3:50 pm No_Spare_Tire

    Visuals/designs were incredible. Primary/secondary characters were engaging. Pacing/action was mindblowing. Soundtrack rocked. Has lots of easter eggs and small details that add that little extra cohesion.

    It’s nearly perfection.

  14. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 17, 2015 @ 4:13 pm jj

    It felt like I was being assaulted. Pure lunacy. All great.

  15. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 17, 2015 @ 8:36 pm truck truck

    Good review right up until you compared the movie to Transformers.

  16. The Critical Movie Critics

    May 23, 2015 @ 11:24 am RoutineContempt

    Pure nitro madness! By setting the bar so high for action movies to come they’re going to have a tough time topping it with the sequel.

Privacy Policy | About Us

 | Log in

Advertisment ad adsense adlogger