Mad Max: Fury Road [Blu-ray]

Description

Mad Max: Fury Road (Blu-ray) Review: Fourth Installment Easily Surpasses the Others. - Mad Max: Fury Road is the sort of fascinatingly original movie-going experience that rarely comes from an existing franchise. And when it comes to “part 4s” in all of cinema, I can’t think of one I’ve ever liked more. George Miller, who directed the series’ other three entries, is back to do the job again here almost 30 years after the last one, and he proves to be cinematically as sharp as ever. The fine accomplishments of actors and all the technical people notwithstanding, this is a director’s film more than anything, with a sweeping vision of a post-apocalyptic world that, however crazy it gets, sells itself all the way through. You don’t question what you see—you feel you are there. It stars Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa, and Tom Hardy as Mad Max—that’s in order of importance. Max is a good character, the continued tortured soul trying survive, and yet finding the humanity in himself; but with all respect Furiosa is the real soul of this movie, the best performance (I’d put it Theron’s best character since her Oscar winning turn in “Monster”) a woman strong, cunning and skilled, yet also at points vulnerable, as she leads a troop of wives away from their powerful, malicious husband who chases them basically from one end of the movie to the other. Max gets caught up with them along the way, in an interesting evolving relation towards Furiosa and the wives. These wives, five of them, don’t get a lot of lines, but the qualities they bring in something different from both Max and Furiosa is important to the film’s success. Vital too are the host of villains, who come in such variety of interesting dark flavors, from the head evil master, down the hierarchy of his lower-ranked cohorts, to the followers convinced of the glory of self-sacrifice for their leader. This movie is marvelously thick with post-apocalyptic atmosphere. It is also thrilling, and so varied with every action or chase sequence that rolls brilliantly off of the previous one. There are moments of slowdown, so to speak, where there is verbal interaction more than a couple words at a time, but as far as character building there’s as much during the action as in the less hectic times. This is a constantly surprising, original film, frequently exciting, sometimes funny, sometimes touching, and absolutely never for any minute stretch uninteresting. The technical expertise to create such wild, high-flying (figuratively and literally) things as are shown here is just mind-boggling, but creativity is where it really excels. It’s one captivating experience, not quite like anything else that’s been made before. It must be seen. The Blu-Ray transfer looks great, and it sounds even better than how it looks. There a fair deal of documentary extras that offer insights into this breathtaking work. Review: A Two-Hour Car Chase - I'm a huge fan of the older Mad Max movies, and I was skeptical this movie could capture the originals. But it does, and so much more. Within ten minutes, I realized it made the original trilogy look kind of cheap and chintzy. This is Mad Max in all his glory. Tom Hardy (a highly underrated actor) is a perfect replacement as Max. And the story is the essence of a simple story well-told. Max gets captured and turned into a living blood bank for a soldier of a twisted death cult, run by the truly sinister Immortan Joe. Immortan Joe is kind of like Lord Humungous from "Road Warrior," if he had gathered a larger following. And was more psychotic. Immortan Joe has created an army of suicidal soldiers, and controls the people with regular dumps of fresh water. But when one of his minions, Furiosa, frees his enslaved women (his "breeders) and sets out to take them to a land of freedom, Immortan Joe's legions are in a race to stop her. Of course, Mad Max ends up on Furiosa's side, and joins them in their journey. What all this boils down to is pretty much a two-hour car chase, which is just fine. The racing scenes were always the best part of the Mad Max movies, and this movie is that in spades. You've got people jumping from one car to another, shooting up other cars, bad guys getting run over by cars, and cars smashing into each other almost non-stop. Every now and then, we get a break in the action, but then it's back to car chases again. It works surprisingly well. The only flaw I could find is that the story development is severely lacking. There are so many questions left unanswered. Why is Immortan Joe so obsessed with breeding children? What is the disease that's killing the "warboys?" Why is so much of the Earth "salted?" What is it that Furiosa feels the need to redeem herself from? The original movies didn't explain much, either, but with all the running around, there's room for almost nothing else. But that's okay. A lot of it is implied, and you don't really need a reason to see cars jumping over each other. And I'd also like to add that, even with a shaved head, black smeared on her face, and missing an arm, Charlize Theron is gorgeous. Good movie. Hope there's more Mad Max on the way.