Review – Mad Max Fury Road – Pure Movie Magic!

With the widespread use of computer generated imagery in almost every movie released in the past twenty five years, what we percieve on the big screen as 'Movie Magic' has been lost. Too often we the audience are inundated with fantastical imagery unable to exist within the real world, too often our senses are bombarded with sights and sounds from another world, another dimension or another plane of existence. So commonplace has the fantastic become that we have become desensitized to its splendour, its magnificence and its wonder; for we know it is not real. The relative infancy of this technology and its clinical execution compounds these virtual wonders to awelessness imagery; too often is the plausibility stretched too far, too often the unnatural nature of the imagery exudes onto the screen, further reducing the awe we should feel.

This BTS photograph of The Wolf of Wall Street shows the abuse of CGI by Hollywood!

Ever increasingly I have felt the over abuse of CGI and the subsequent loss of Movie Magic while watching movies. Though occasionally a movie will grab my attention with a well choreographed action sequence or elaborately planned and executed establishing shot, all too often many modern movies feel 'Too Fake', with too much CGI, too much camera trickery. Gone, it seemed, where the days of watching a movie on the end of your seat in awe, wonder and pure amazement. Yet of all the films that I have watched recently, the last thing I expected was for it to be a Mad Max movie.

On the hunt, Gibsons Max started it all back in 1979!

In my opinion, as seminal it may have been at the time of its release, whenever I have watched the first Mad Max movie I have found the films pace to be somewhat lacking. While I will agree that some recent movies are too fastly paced within their narrative and editing for their own good, it seems (to me at least) that a lot of movies made in the 1970's had an excruciatingly slow pace; too often needlessly repeating plot elements or dragging out establishing shots for far too long. The first Mad Max, I felt, suffered greatly from this, with too many lulls in the story and also the action. This cannot be said for the series latest instalment...

Furiosa is aruably one of Theron's better roles to date!

From the opening scene to the roll of the end credits director George Millers latest movie, and his long awaited return to the franchise and genre he sired, grabs you, your eyeballs and your goolies and takes them for a ride. The realisation of the world he has created racing past, away and toward you with explosions, crashes, stunts, firefights and fistfights all executed practically in front of a camera unafraid of getting in on the action, further immerses you into Millers crazy vision of the future. What little CGI is used, mostly for Theron's left arm and the amazing sandstorm, is used exceptionally well, with the latter looking amazing on te big screen. Yet the movies many, many practical effects and stunts are so well executed that the sandstorm becomes but a distant memory. Visually Miller has captured some of the most amazing in-camera imagery not seen since classic epic movies like Ben Hur.

Some fans have speculated that Hardy's Max is instead a grown up feral kid! 

The imagery and the action drive the narrative, each are intertwined and reliant upon one another, and while Fury Rods narrative isn't as groundbreaking as its visuals it never feels forced, never feels manipulated for the benefit of the audience. The narratives simplicity allows the visual splendour of the movie to take prominence. I have heard some criticism of the way that Hardy's Max is used, some calling him a sidekick to Theron's hard edged Furiosa. While I must agree that Hardy's character is used this way, I cannot criticize it. Throughout the entire series Max Rockatansky has been an outsider, a third perspective to the events taking place around him until he is urged to step forward and take centre stage in the movies closing act; be it seeking vengeance for his family, driving the tanker through Lord Humungus' forces or his heroic return to Bartertown. Yes Furiosa is given more screen time, and a much meatier role in the movie, but that is because her actions are driving the films narrative, Max is along for the ride before he is trusted and then, in the final act, takes charge. Narratively this movie would not have made any sense with Max as its driving force, so therefore I cannot criticize his characters use.

All of this comes together to create two hours of pure movie magic; each shot, every camera angle is perfectly executed to flawlessly keep you immersed within the craziness that pursues Furiosa and Max through the post apocalyptic wastelands of Millers imagined and fully realised future. Continuity errors aside (wasn't Sprog a baby boy not a little girl), writer and director George Miller has created a visual masterpiece and his best film to date. Pure Movie Magic!