Mad Max: Fury Road

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD   ***

George Miller

2015

IDEA:  In a post-apocalyptic future wasteland, a despot sends a fleet of warriors to chase down and stop the renegade Imperator Furiosa and her distaff crew.

BLURB:  A hard-driving salute to action movie excess and an emphatic rebuke of the capitalistic, patriarchal systems that traditionally order such spectacle, Mad Max: Fury Road gratifies moviegoers’ adrenaline lusts while offering satisfying subversions. Its influences are wide-ranging and proudly displayed: not just the American western, which informed the original series, but more pronouncedly silent cinema, the go-for-broke stunts of Buster Keaton and the visceral collision of Soviet montage. Also in play are grindhouse and late 60s counterculture, exhibited by Miller’s delirious collection of grotesqueries and his forceful, lovingly crude takedown of establishment. The film is strongest when these influences coalesce in operatic action set pieces that are allowed to unfold across the screen unabated; when the action halts for some rather dodgy, perfunctory dialogue, Miller’s desire to make us care for characters best left as allegorical signifiers clashes with his inclination for pure, grimy visual expression. Even if it can’t entirely sustain its barreling momentum, Fury Road’s brash fusion of action physics and progressive politics provides a potent and welcome charge.