I had the pleasure of seeing George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road opening night. But I have hesitated to actually write and post my review for the film until now. The simple reason being that it has taken me this long to fully comprehend and analyze just what the hell I had watched. The simplest answer is the most tempting one: the best damn action film I have seen since John Woo’s Hard Boiled (1992). But that leaves me feeling unsatisfied. The truth is that it left me in a hazy, logy delirium: shell-shocked, stumbling, exhausted. The film is a symphony of scrooping engines; a ballet of twisting, desiccated metal; a gasoline opera; a singular cinematic event. Now, we have all seen plenty of car chases, explosions, gun battles, and other time-honored Stations of the Action Movie Cross. But the difference is that Mad Max: Fury Road seems determined to throttle its audience with images that they have never seen before. In a way, this is similar to the grandiose excess of George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977). Everybody has seen sci-fi starfighters before, but not ones literally shaped like X’s and Y’s. Everybody has seen post-apocalyptic, off-road vehicles (mostly thanks to Miller’s previous Mad Max films), but not Volkswagen Beetles affixed with giant metal hedgehog spikes. Everyone has seen imposing space villains, but not a towering figure in a black suit and samurai helmet. Everyone has seen hordes of filthy, animalistic wasteland warriors, but not an army of them led by a bugler playing a flame-throwing guitar. Quite simply, both Miller and Lucas showed their audiences worlds that had never been shown before on screen. However, the original Star Wars will always have the upper hand on Mad Max: Fury Road simply because it didn’t just introduce its audiences to one world, but to several; not just to space knights, but to space wizards, cowboys, fascists, and princesses. But Mad Max: Fury Road is astounding in its single-minded devotion to fleshing out its sole planet in all of its awe-inspiring madness and lunacy. It brings the humanity back to the action genre as well as the most face-melting practical effects since Peter Jackson’s original Lord of the Rings trilogy. If the world is just, this film will be the first nail in the coffin of modern Hollywood CGI blockbusters which are more green-screen than real-world sheen; more machine now than man.
10/10
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