Buckle up, buttercup—we’re headed to Valhalla
Mad Max: Fury Road is the greatest action movie ever made. This point cannot be argued, it cannot be debated. The sky is blue, water is wet, Fury Road is the best. Incontrovertible fact. This review is going to be a little different, because I’m making the dangerous assumption that you’ve seen this movie. If you haven’t, go do that now. No fooling—put down the phone and watch Fury Road, then come back.
Fury Road is the first Mad Max flick to not star Mel Gibson. It was supposed to—that’s how long Fury Road spent in development hell. But in between Thunderdome and FR, Mel had a run-in with the law, won Oscars, and slowly went child-eatingly insane. While some might argue that would make him perfect for a new Mad Max flick, the truth was that Mel probably couldn’t have handled it. So we got a new Max, in the form of Tom Hardy.
Seen here, channeling his inner Riggs
I will go to my grave convinced that they beat the screaming minotaur out of him, hypnotized him, and told him only: “SURVIVE, MOTHERFUCKER.” That kind of lunacy doesn’t come easy.
The thousand-yard stare of a man who ate an extra on set, bones and all
He was the perfect choice for Max. But it’s important to note something about this movie, something huge, and the clue is on the movie poster at the start of this review. Here it is: Max is not the main character of this movie.
The real heroine of the movie, along with some dude.
This show belongs almost entirely to Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa, who is clearly the most badass woman who has ever existed.
Theron, hunting her lunch on set, just before an extra mysteriously disappeared
There were some idiots people who were angered by this. “Why is she the main character in a movie about Mad Max?” they cried, clutching the pearls woven into their neckbeards, their basement lairs a-quiver. I don’t know the actual reason, but I’ve some theories.
By the time Fury Road was gifted to us by a loving God, “Mad Max” as a concept had entered fully into the cultural zeitgeist. I didn’t have to explain Mad Max—merely saying the words was enough to trigger the idea of a deserted wasteland, badass cars, a haunted Mel Gibson, and Thunderdomes as far as the eye could see. We got it, man.
Fury Road is a different film because of all that. Fury Road upends the conventions that the first three films created. The older ones are drab and washed out, lacking color or conventional beauty. FR is colorful and vivid, full of bright contrasts. The first three: brutal, badass men, ready to peel your face off and wear it as a loincloth, desperately trying to survive. Fury Road is full of smart women who are trying to build a better world, trying to escape those same men. This film was directed by a man. It was edited and finished by a woman.
Furiosa is missing an arm, and wears a rough prosthesis in its place. She fights to get the gorgeous Wives to someplace safe and free, where they can be their own people and not property. She is every woman who’s been called nasty names by some sleazebag in a bar because she didn’t meet his ideals of beauty. And what of those sleazebags? There are a total of two good men in FR: Max himself and Nux, both of whom view Furiosa and the wives as people trying to break free and be themselves. They respect that. All of the other men in the movie, from Immortan Joe on down, view Furiosa and the Wives as property, as goods. And yes, I’m aware that Max and Nux both need time to come to their realizations. The point is that they do—in Nux’s case, he changes literally his entire worldview, which is astonishing for a sidekick in an action movie.
Everyone who made this movie is either filthy or dead
Approximately eight and one half trillion words have been written about Fury Road, including all these that I’ve contributed. This flick won Oscars, and lots of them—it won the most of any movie the year it was nominated, and not just technical ones either.
Mad Max: Fury Road was nominated for Best Picture. Let that sink in.
A movie with this in it was nominated for Best Picture, as God intended
Fury Road is not to be fucked with.
It has all the good stuff you expect from a Mad Max movie: car chases, action, stunts galore, homoerotic bondage mutants. The Interceptor is in it for like five seconds.
Seen here just before it gets destroyed. Again.
It’s honestly a perfect movie. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it. I watch it about once every three months or so, simply because it’s that awesome. Watch the making-of stuff, because all that shit was done practically—they were out in the desert, blowing shit up and having a grand old time and created the perfect film.
Join us tomorrow for a massive post. We’ll be reviewing the Mad Max video game, and talking about various theories and ideas that surround the Mad Max lore. Here’s another picture of Tom Hardy as Max because he’s dreamy.
Real badasses never look back.
