Mad Max: Fury Road

Before starting this review, I must begin by saying that I have not yet seen the first 3 Mad Max movies so any references to the previous films comes not from my viewing of the film but from research I have done into the connections between this film and its predecessors. While there are several small connections through stylistic decisions and story elements (both of which I will touch on later), this film is hardly a traditional sequel and can easily be viewed as an independent story.

I went into this film not sure what to expect; I was familiar with the critical acclaim that the first Mad Max movie enjoys and yet I have never particularly enjoyed high speed chases or movies with action for action's sake, which the trailers made this film out to be, because they tend to lack substance when it comes to acting and have a plot that is usually one-dimensional. Mad Max not only broke away from this action-film mold, it exposed how limited this genre really is while offering a new formula for future action films predicated on fewer cliché story elements and strong female characters while still maintaining spectacular visuals. I went into Mad Max expecting just another action movie, what I saw was a film that could potentially revolutionize the action genre.

Characters/Acting

                Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron): The film may be called Mad Max and it may start and end with him, but anyone watching Charlize Theron’s captivating performance of Imperator Furiosa soon realizes that Mad Max is actually about her with Max providing the vehicle (no pun intended) for her story. The film begins with Max’s capture at the hands of several War Boys but from the moment Furiosa is introduced (less than ten minutes into the film) she takes over as the film’s true main character. It is she who is trying to free the birth mothers and take them to “the green place,” her story of redemption for past sins as much as Max’s redemption, and she who the film’s villain, Imortan Joe, is trying to kill (in fact Joe never so much as acknowledges Max’s existence at any point during the film.) Not only is the story written with Furiosa as its focus in both plot and dialogue, but Charlize Theron’s acting performance dominates the screen, drawing the audience’s attention with the raw intensity that we’ve come to expect from male action heroes like Bruce Willis and Liam Neeson, but do not usually associate with female characters. Charlize Theron’s performance is a refreshing defiance of the typical female role of helpless love interest and shows that a strong female lead playing an emotionally scarred, physically tough character can be just as believable as male actors. This film, and Charlize Theron in particular, left me wondering why more films don’t have stories written for strong, independent women if characters like Furiosa are the result we can expect. I will discuss the role of women in Mad Max in further detail when I break down the film’s plot.

                Mad Max (Tom Hardy): While in many ways Charlize Theron stole the show, I still thoroughly enjoyed Hardy’s performance. Where the character of Furiosa wore her emotions on her sleeve, the audience had a much more difficult time discerning what Max was feeling or thinking due to his extremely limited dialogue and his largely quite demeanor: an intentional move on the part of Director and Writer George Miller. Hardy’s performance was subtlety at its finest. Since his dialogue was so limited he could not act through his words, as most roles do, so instead he used his eyes and his body language to convey his character’s inner turmoil. The jittery manner in which Hardy moves throughout the film is one example of how he effectively demonstrates Max’s borderline insanity without speaking, another being the way his eyes are constantly shifting back and forth in his head. It is challenging for any actor to have to act through his eyes and not his words and Hardy certainly deserves praise for his performance as Max, especially since it would have been easy for him to have been overshadowed by Furiosa’s much more emotional character. Instead, the two characters work as a perfect balance of personalities.  

Nux (Nicholas Hoult): Hoult is hardly recognizable as War Boy Nux from his previous role as Beast in the X-men series in personality as well as appearance. He plays this role so convincingly that it is hard to believe that the high octane, restless character of Nux is an act for Hoult. Nux is the character who develops the most over the film’s progression, evolving from a religious fanatic motivated by fear to a willing member of Furiosa’s group who ultimately sacrifices himself for his companions. Hoult is certainly not a great actor at this point but this role shows the potential for a promising career.

Directing

As a writer, director and producer of Mad Max Fury Road, as well as all of its prequels, George Miller is firmly in command of the Mad Max Saga and deserves most of the credit for its success. With this film, Miller reminds us that action films do not have to follow a generic directing style of point and shoot, as so many do, but can incorporate unique and creative methods into even such common place scenes as a car chase.

One method Miller utilizes to great effect is always shooting the character currently on screen so that they appear in the middle of the screen; this allows the audience to more easily focus on the character being shown without having to find them in the chaos of so much action. This is a subtle decision that is more noticeable in films like Transformers where it isn’t used and the audience is either left with a subsequent migraine from searching the screen or simply misses out on half of what is being shown. 

Unlike Michael Bay, Miller also realizes that not every scene requires an action scene, but sometimes a character or an idea is more effectively represented when the audience doesn’t see anything at all but has to rely on their own imagination. An example is the scene where Max comes back from killing the bullet farm's leader, dragging a bag of weapons and covered in blood. The audience never sees Max kill the bullet farmer but they never have to, instead the idea that Max is a badass who can take on a car full of enemies by himself is still conveyed and the viewers spared a potentially taxing fight sequence.

Miller should also be applauded for his decision to use as little CGI as possible (only about 10% of the film is CGI) in order to make the film appear and feel as realistic as possible (the flames shooting out of the guitar are in fact real). Using the Australian landscape combined with enhanced color filters to make the film as vibrant as possible, Miller was able to achieve his goal of creating a uniquely colorful post-apocalyptic world; this was a conscious effort by Miller to prevent the audience from feelings of bleakness and destitution. This method was simple yet also highly effective.

As the director of the previous Mad Max films, Miller also incorporated some of his old techniques into this new film to give it the same feel as its predecessors. The opening title sequence which shows Max and the pursuing War Boys at a much higher frame rate, creating the illusion that they are running at high speeds, was used in the original Mad Max film as well. The scenes which superimpose the presumably dead girl and an older black man are also ways of effectively connecting Max to his past without a lengthy explanation. Even having Australian actors such as the Bullet farmer, some of the old women from the green space, and Furiosa’s lieutenant, was a way for Miller to maintain the feel of the older films. There are plenty more examples of ties to the previous films, but I'll spare this review for the sake of brevity. 

Another area where Miller imprints his directional style is his transitions throughout the film. There are several moments in the story where there is a shift in the story’s pacing, usually from a high action sequence to a much slower one, and a lesser director might have struggled with these transitions appearing choppy. Instead, Miller uses scenes like these to further enhance the audience’s feeling that they are not only watching a car chase, but they are experiencing it. One example is the scene where we see the flare in the desert after storm slowly dim and fade to darkness as the music builds and then suddenly the scene switches to bright morning sunlight with bright sand and a very slowly rising Max. This quick shift from high speed to an abrupt halt is not unlike suddenly braking in a car and gives the film greater depth in a very subtle way. Another example of this technique is that right after Max is caught while trying to escape being branded and has been shown at a higher film rate, he is thrust back inside the cave and we are immediately shown the brand on Furiosa’s neck. In addition to creating a car-like transition, this also serves as a way of introducing Furiosa and immediately creates a connection in the audience’s mind between her and Max.

Miller also makes great use of the film’s score to further his car-like effect. Miller incorporates rock music for scenes with a lot of excitement and at the height of action sequences, while he uses a classical style score when the pacing slows or comes to an abrupt halt. One notable exception to this is the very brief scene with the bullet farmer’s car charging in pursuit over the marsh and he uses classical music to build excitement. 

Miller’s directing in this film is brilliant because it is both everywhere and nowhere at once. For the most part he does not rely on artsy or flashy directing techniques, but uses subtlety to manipulate his audience into feeling a certain way without their noticing. Miller also shows the restraint in this film that so many action film directors, like Michael Bay, lack.

Story/Screenplay

Too often action films are left in the hands of directors who seem more interested in creating explosions than creating and telling a fast-paced narrative (Michael Bay being the prime example, but there are plenty of others including, more recently, Peter Jackson and George Lucas). Thankfully, George Miller seems to care very much about his characters and their story, and it shows.

Much of what makes Mad Max so interesting and distracts the audience from the fact that it is essentially one long car chase is the story. Miller and his co-writers have taken a very popular and commonly used theme of post-apocalyptic society, and through the incorporation of creative story elements and powerful themes have crafted an interesting and unique story.

The presence of so many strong female characters is what makes this film stand above so many action movies and is a large factor in its overwhelmingly positive reception among critics. This film is one of only 42% of films to pass the famous Bechdel test (which asks if a film has: 1. more than one female character, 2. that these women talk to each other and 3. that they talk about something other than men) and it is no surprise that it passes this test considering George Miller hired feminist Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues, as a consultant in order to make his female characters strong. One example of this female strength is the scene where Max hands over the sniper rifle to Furiosa, acknowledging that after he had missed she should take the last shot. This is a powerful representation that she is Max’s equal not only in screen time but in strength of character.

Having the leaders of the former “green place” all be women as well as the women who were trying to escape meant that almost the entire cast of protagonists in the film, with the exception of Max and eventually Nux, were women and as such these women were afforded ample opportunity to display their skill and strength of character. Having so many capable and independent female characters made this film more interesting to watch, particularly because it meant the worn out theme of the damsel in distress didn’t have to be further exhausted. More films should follow the example being set by Mad Max and embrace its message: women can handle as strong of roles as men and having such female roles greatly enhances the story. 

The overall topic of people as commodities versus the birth mothers’ reminders that “We are not things” was a stronger than average topic for action film and gave the story of Fury Road solid weight. It also worked well to further the theme of women as strong characters by portraying them in conflict with Immortan Joe’s notion that he can possess them.

In addition to breaking the mold with his strong female characters, Miller also showed rare restraint for a director in regards to his characters. Unlike the overly grotesque characters of a film like 300, Miller was able to incorporate some rather gruesome imagery without it reaching the point of being uncomfortable to look at. The War Boys' boils, the deformed son of Immortan Joe, and even Joe’s death, are all examples of how he reached the boundary of disgusting without crossing over into grotesque. In doing so, Miller maintained the balance of creating a unique and interesting world but keeping the audience’s attention on the characters and story.

George Miller and his co-writers also strengthened this film’s story by avoiding the temptation to fall into overdone and tiresome clichés. Having the intestinal fortitude as a storyteller to kill off Nux, a young boy who the audience grows to like and sympathize with, rather than sparing him to preserve a happy ending, was a bold and commendable decision. The greatest trap, however, that Miller avoided, was the temptation to have Max and Furiosa form a romantic relationship by having Max kiss her when she was on the verge of death. Not only would this have weakened her character significantly and turned her into yet another damsel, it would have shattered the bond they had formed over their shared desire to achieve redemption. Sometimes it is not what directors and screenwriters do that makes their stories successful, it is what they choose not to do.

Another significant part of what made this movie interesting and unique was the many creative concepts that Miller brought to this post-apocalyptic world. The types of War Boy warriors: pole cats, flamers, war rigs, etc. as well as the many different car designs, especially the rocker vehicle, gave the audience something to look at as well as making the film less like a typical car chase. The concept of Mad Max being a universal donor and used as a blood bag, which ends up saving Furiosa, was also very clever. At the heart of the story is the concept of the War Boys being half-lives who are trying to reach Valhalla while also worshipping V-8 engines; this along with the idea of "witnessing" with chrome and being reincarnated shiny and chrome like cars is a very creative concept of a fictional religious cult.

My favorite scene in the film is when Max and Nux are fighting chained together. The camera work here is awesome and it is also the first time the audience sees all three main characters together. It is also the moment when Nux’s potential as a protagonist is first revealed.

Conclusion:

Mad Max: Fury Road is a revolutionary new action film which incorporates strong female characters and a unique story in addition to breathtaking visuals. These visuals are not overdone and neither is the story. This film is fast paced and action packed, yet somehow also makes great use of subtlety through Miller’s directing and Hardy’s acting. Charlize Theron’s performance is incredible, particularly in the still limited genre of an action film, but even more impressive than her acting is the creativity and skill that director/writer/producer George Miller brought to this film.

Grade:

WRAP: 95%