What a lovely day! The general
reaction of the cinema crowd was in rhythm with the film’s subtitle. Mad Max re-awakens
after 30 years, and how! This is one movie series that just keeps on getting
better with the years. Seriously! George Miller has to be quite the twisted guy
for dreaming up the plethora of even more twisted characters we got to witness
in all his films but regardless, his visualisation of the vestiges of the human
race in a desolate world has been raising brows and collecting gasps ever since
the original film came out in 1979, for reasons we shall see below.
No other filmmaker has been able
to capture and present dystopia in the manner Miller gave the world Mad Max. It
has been the cinematic bible for apocalypse nerds globally, and it seems the
trend shall continue with Fury Road which is madder, wilder and much more
intense than all three previous films combined.
In the previous films, I never
really got the idea behind the title ‘Mad’ attached to Max Rockatansky, the
eponymous lead. Max (Tom Hardy) had always been a composed character. Sure, he
was a loner, and much of his time is spent doing the same things the rest of
his surrounding violent world is upto – looting, scavenging and fighting to
find his way. His world as stated in the film, “is reduced to one instinct –
survive.” Going by his circumstances and the people he is always pitted
against, he must be one of the sanest people around. However, Fury Road finally
provides some justice, and brings out the true colours of madness in Max,
instances of which are seen in the initial scenes themselves.
The audience is jolted out of
their 30-year long slumber by a really fast-moving, really violent sequence where
Max gets captured in order that his blood may be harvested for the soldiers of
a god-king, Immortan Joe. For almost half an hour of the film, Max’s face
remains hidden in a metal mask, and this entire time he is ‘madly’ trying to
escape from the clutches of his captors, who are out to retrieve Imperator
Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a rogue soldier who has escaped with the god-king’s collection of premium breeding Wives.
The fundamental premise of the
film follows the same routine as the previous instalments. Max, through a
random turn of events, finds himself smack in the middle of Furiosa’s sticky
situation, and out of the inherent goodness of his heart, helps her turn things
around, being ‘The Maximum Force of The Future’ and leaves after the job is
done, for further misadventures in the Australian wasteland (The films’ are set
in Australia, for the uninitiated), and possibly another sequel. BUT make no
mistake, this movie isn’t about Max.
For once the epicentre is someone
else, and that is the female lead, Furiosa. Tom Hardy’s presence is reduced to
that of a supporting character in the face of Charlize Theron’s Furiosa, who
robs most of the show and acts as the lead action source. Her portrayal of a
hardened woman, out on a life-or-death mission (in their world, everything is
life-or-death) is genuine, and as was expected from Theron, even though her
accent is completely un-Australian, and with the one-liners, she seems like the
quintessential Hollywood action hero. Even her native South African accent
could have lent some authenticity to the role. Apart from this chink, the rest
of her show is fine.
Somehow, Tom Hardy is not someone
I could visualise in the role of Max. Agreed, Max is a hard man, testosterone
flowing out of his ears, but Tom Hardy seems WAY too rough and rugged for the part.
For those who have seen the previous films with Mel Gibson, he was a softer
personality. He was like a chocolate boy with the added traits of a highway
motorcyclist. Hardy gives off the impression of a figure such as a mercenary, one
who has seen way too much war in his life, and has been shaped and moulded by
it accordingly, which would have been fine, but if you compare Gibson in Beyond the Thunderdome (1985) with
Hardy, the latter seems comparatively younger. And when you’re following a linear
chronology, ignoring something like that just doesn’t fly.
Getting back to the story, the
film holds firm both in terms of its adrenaline as well as the sociological and
philosophical quotient. Like its predecessors, Fury Road explores into the awry
condition of humans, and the changes and burdens and scarcities society would face
post a global war over the most precious resource of the modern world – fuel.
Noting down the idea of something
such is one thing, and getting an entire team of actors to pull it off for you,
is another and director George Miller just doesn’t get tired of extending the
benchmark. The sets and costumes too are extraordinary, and in concurrence with
the crazy facets of the remaining tribal humans.
In terms of action, the film is
one of the most satisfactory experiences I’ve had recently, with almost 1 and a
half hour worth of explosive vehicular action out of its length of 2 hours, and
keeping true to his name, Miller presents some of the most realistic and
sincerely chilling action sequences one can witness. Add to that the heavy thumping
war music and the immersive drums, and you yourself are lost in the madness and
the chaos.
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