Film Review // Mad Max Fury Road (2015)

Mad Max Fury Road Film Poster

Cars, explosions & an extreme sense of Art Direction, Mad Max Fury Road pushes its original movie franchise to the limits with a fetishized world of Cars where the elements test human endurance to the fullest. Combining George Miller's love for unrelenting violence, destruction & raw power, Mad Max Fury Road is a child-grown-up's dream world. Opposed to the original Miller uses far more feminist imagery deep within the story as a matter of base principal rather than being brash and throwing it in your face.

As a film, the newest addition to the Mad Max series quickly pulls you into a world of baron grandeur and spectacular vehicle design. It holds nothing back in it's show with utmost respect for the audience to speedily grasp swift zoom-ins of details and accelerated developments. Scenes are long; shots are in rapid-fire succession, and often leaves you at a crossroads for wanting to pause and admire small details on steering wheels or a character's dust-covered armour, or continue on without interruption for fear that you'll ruin your immersion into the rotting world. Possibly one of the most interesting aspects of Mad Max Fury Road is just how humble it is with its design. Design is used to emphasize the world and tie everything together. The mashed up post-apocalyptic styled vehicles together with reminiscently 80's-clad villains prove highly original in their variety whilst staying true to it's roots from all the way back to 79' with the original Mad Max.

A script kept to the bare minimum is questionable as to whether Mad Max Fury Road needs one or not. Extremely light, the characters themselves only speak up when a major decision or arch is being made. The key here is that the lack of a normal length script is overshadowed by everything else going on and fades into the background going unnoticed. Anything that is said tends to aid towards massive character development; and often drops shrouds built up around them. The more they say, the more we know about them; yet Mad Max Fury Road does an incredible job of keeping Max not only ambiguous but hints at a more ambivalent main character. Throughout the two hour display of paroxysmally profound madness it is understood that Max as a character would not side with Immortan Joe yet at the same time we can never be so sure. Similarly, he could side with Furiosa and the escapee wives, but we can never be so sure. 

Having mentioned character development however, it is important to understand that every character, aside from War Boy, the empirically misguided, simple-minded yet overtly soft-hearted soldier of Immortan Joe's army comes developed fully. The dying world is filled with adults who have seen it all; experienced so much and still we only see so little. Incredibly complex characters are whittled down to instinctively simple creatures foraging for water, hope, and redemption. We join Furiosa with her motives already set in stone as she takes the War Rig on a detour in search for the "Green Place" alongside the wives of Immortan Joe used for breeding. Max on the other hand has no end; a character that comes and goes on his own inward terms. He finds new experiences and leaves them at the end similarly to how as an audience it is watching Mad Max Fury Road. Following Furiosa from the Citadel in search of the Green Place and all the way back again, as Furiosa and the survivors of their exploits find some serenity in the world whom someone killed, Max continues on by himself.