Tom Hardy is one of my all time favourite actors for a number of reasons. From his breakthrough performance as the crazed inmate Charlie Bronson, to his under appreciated role as Freddie in The Take and later on his iconic imagining of Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. At the age of 37, Tom Hardy, in my opinion, is rapidly becoming this generations Robert De Niro. When I found out George Miller would be gracing our screens once again with a new Mad Max movie and Mr Hardy would be playing the role of cinemas beloved road warrior, I was overjoyed! And after finishing this fast paced ride through hell there were only two things on my mind: action cinema NEEDED this movie... And the future truly does belong to the mad.
From the furthest depths of a post apocalyptic world, in a stark and barren dessert where crazed humans fight for the bare necessities in life, rise two alluring Anti-Heroes from the sand. Max Rockatansky: road warrior/former cop who finds himself caught inside the middle of a chase whilst helping a woman named Furiosa and her female companions as she struggles to return to her homeland, whilst being hunted down by a ruthless dessert gang and their leader, Immortan Joe: ruler of the land she is trying to escape from.
In a world where the likes of ‘Taken 2’ and ‘Die Hard 57’ rule the action genre, this movie is truly a breath of fresh air. It’s opening scene hits like the rev of Max’s V8 Interceptor and doesn’t step off the pedal until the very end. I credit the downfall of modern action cinema down to two factors: characters who appear to be invincible and never truly under major threat, and ones that audiences simply can’t connect with, the mirror opposite of what this movie delivers. Max is a broken and lonely soul, who is tormented by visions of his dead family who he feels responsible for not protecting. Throughout this whole movie there isn’t a moment where he’s not in some sort of danger. From being chained up and raced across the dessert whilst acting as a ghouls blood pack, to risking his life to protect essentially a group of strangers he met hours ago. He’s a character who’s wellbeing you truly worry and care for and most importantly he’s not invincible, he’s just a bad ass.
Whilst obviously predominantly dessert based, this movie is stunning and constantly exciting on the eye; with the majority filmed without CGI, giving the explosions and stunts an added boost in my opinion. It’s score was perfect and one I haven’t paid the same attention to since the likes of The Dark Knight Rises. Performance wise once again Tom hardy knocks it out the park. When an actor can be on screen for nearly 2 hours with hardly any dialogue and completely capture your full attention, it only goes to serve the level of his acting ability. Charlize Theron was also brilliant and finally graced our screens with the bad ass female action hero hollywood deserves. Amidst all the chaos Nicholas Hoult gave a really standout performance as Nux and really added that vulnerable human side to this movie; kinda ironic for a character who’s already half dead, eh?
This movie is a shining example of a big screen action movie done right. It’s two hours of explosions, car chases, gun-fire, fighting and ghouls playing guitars that shoot rockets into the sky. I could go on forever but alas, this movie is a benchmark in the modern action genre, just like Die Hard was in the eighties and The Matrix was in the nighties. Go find the nearest IMAX 3D cinema and loose yourself in all things mad, now.
If you enjoyed this movie, check out: Mad Max 1, 2 & 3.
My rating: 10 out of 10
Joshua White
Fire Write With Me
