Mad Max: Fury Road

I’m happy to say that Mad Max: Fury Road was exactly what I wanted it to be. Not smart, not cerebral, not challenging and not strikingly original, but incredibly good fun.

I’ve never seen the original, but I’ve always liked the aesthetic, and after all I’ve played Borderlands 2, which in many ways was heavily influenced by the film – and I suspect influenced a few things in this reboot, too.

Mel Gibson has been put out to pasture, with Tom Hardy building on his success as Bane in the title role. Part of me admittedly would rather have an Australian play Max, and he does seem to have a rather bizarre accent in this film, when he’s not just grunting. But he fits in well in what is ultimately not really his story – this film is really centred on Charlize Theron.

Max is mad because he is haunted by his past, and the people whose lives he failed to save. On the other hand, a way to keep the flashbacks at bay seems to be keeping busy. Perhaps fortunate, then, that he’s captured by a strange group of men reminiscent of the Borderlands psychos and being a universal donor, becomes a living ‘blood bag’ for a sickly young warrior called Nux, who gets enough reaction shots near the start that you know he’s not just going to be killed off in the first few minutes. And that was before I realised it was Nicholas Hoult under that makeup, doing a much more likeable role than the last one I saw him undertake, in the surprisingly decent but very stupid Warm Bodies.

Nux’s society is lorded over by Immortan Joe and his family, who have taken control of the only source of clean water in the post-apocalyptic desert and live as gods. Their ‘war boys’, painted white, mostly dying from tumours and deluded into fanatical loyalty, keep Joe in his position, while the general population are in no position to rebel, eking out a living from the water Joe distributes.

Joe keeps a harem of beautiful wives to breed strong sons for him, though it seems this enterprise is fairly new, as his other sons are grown adults, one with severe birth defects and the other very strong and capable. Charlize Theron’s character Imperator Furiosa is in a trusted position, but on a run to get supplies, smuggles the wives out and sets off for freedom. Max gets involved and becomes a very useful bit of muscle, but other than one key decision is pretty peripheral in the larger scheme of things, and the damsels in distress turn out not to particularly fit that role, which is refreshing for such a testosterone-fuelled story. Pretty much the rest of the story, apart from a poignant moment or two of lost hope, was car chases in ridiculous vehicles, lots of explosions and people getting shot.

It was ridiculous, but in such an exuberant way. Of course everyone loved the flamethrower guitar guy on a vehicle that served the same function as war drums, but it was the details I loved. The worship of the godlike entity V-8. The way steering wheels are given as a kind of blessing and certification of combat fitness. The use of simple chrome spraypaint to send the war boys into suicidal berserker rage, demanding their acts be witnessed. The wonderful weight behind the word, ‘Mediocre’. That the reinforcements that enable the final arc are grizzled, thoroughly awesome old ladies.

Dumb, ridiculous, over-the-top, gratuitous – Mad Max: Fury Road was all of these things. But was that in any way a bad thing? Absolutely not.