Review of Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) by Saket D — 19 Jan 2019

!Warning: Mild Spoilers !

I will have to start my movie critic journey with one of my all-time favorite movie's and arguably the best action movie ever. Before this movie I have never watched any one of the Mad Max films. It's one of those days where you don't have any idea about the movie but end up shattering all your expectations and you just came out of the theater ecstatic. I couldn't believe what I saw. The movie redefined the post-apocalyptic action genre and made all the recent action movies like fast and furious franchise, marvel franchise look childish. It did it with mind boggling visuals and perfectly orchestrated stunts. The most surprising one was the film was directed by an veteran guy whose last film was Happy Feet.

Coming to the movie, it exists in an post-apocalyptic future following an energy crisis. The highlight of plot was the female protagonist named Furiosa (Charlize Theron) who was the Imperator of the main antagonist Immortal Joe who resides in Citadel. Five woman who were selected for breeding with Immortal Joe were taken by Furiosa in a war rig to save them and take them to a safe place. She was supposed to go to fetch gasoline but when Immortal Joe found out that the wives have been missing he leads his entire army to capture Furiosa and wives, calling on the aid of nearby Gas Town and the Bullet Farm. The group finds a support in Max (Tom Hardy) who is the main male protagonist. He is an universal donor captured for donating blood to one of the war boy's named Nux who also joined the pursuit in capturing Furiosa(He later turns against the Immortal Joe and gets killed).

After going to the safe place (called the 'Green place' in the film. It's where Furiosa was born and was kidnapped as a child), Furiosa discovered that it was destroyed due to severe drought and got more support in her clan. They return back to Citadel again as Max made them realize that it has resources full of water and food and it's th eonly way out. While they were headed to Citadel they kill the immortal Joe and trap all the war boys by blocking the canyon path.

The movie is little less in plot but the CGI were so good that it completely overshadows the plot. Especially there is a scene where Furiosa and the team were chased into a desert storm, the visuals were in the scene were so good it puts the scene probably into one of my top 3 scenes of all time. The movie also didn't deviate by placing any romantic scenes between Furiosa and Max nor by putting any flashback scenes which drag the movie and make it less interesting (There were some glimpses of Max's past but that's about it).

The energy was exhilarating right from start to finish. The sound design, editing, music are arguably the best that the genre has ever seen. The action scenes are so engrossing, the movie captures the viewer' mind and eyes right to the end. Even in the midst of chaotic action scenes the viewer can still follow the dynamics of the scene (Where all the war vehicles are located relative to each other and relative to the ground, who died, who attacked, etc.) by constantly giving the viewer overhead shots. Mad Max: Fury Road is probably one of the best action movies made since Terminator 2 is not an understatement.

To quote one of the movie quotes:

If I'm going to die, I'm going to die historic, on the fury road! - Nux.