A Superlative Action Film is 2015's "Mad Max: Fury Road"--'A Man Reduced to a Single Instinct: Survival'

Mad Max Fury Road is one for action film fans, it’s physical, brawny, and brainy that is the equivalent of a long-distance endurance race, extreme sports, and the high jump, all from the comfort of your chair. The film is unrelenting action, big budget, and there is a heart in here somewhere. It is not empty and executed with top level craftmanship on a scale not seen for a while since 2015.

Story

The film is shot in the desert of Namibia, so said my AI bot from its sources, (You can check on IMDB or Wikipedia), in any case, the desert in this film is long wide and beautiful and the equivalent of beach buggies get to ‘cruise’ the hard sands, but these are war trucks, extreme four-wheel drives and motor vehicular mayhem ensues.

There is a citadel at the end of this post-apocalyptic world which controls the water supplies and “greens”, owned by the sinisterly masked, tubed up, and lung incapacitated villain of the film, an evil man who uses female breeders, teen girls, to continue the ‘human race’ under his control.

Conflict in this world ensues in survival of the fittest manner involving rebel factions, runaway breeders, and the Max of the film’s title who are all chased down by the evil mastermind of the new world intent on maintaining his control over these ‘upstarts’ in unrelenting sequences throughout.

Qualities and Lack Thereof

The film is rated R for violence, but the film is a masterpiece of action craft, well staged and controlled, with amazing stunts and set pieces. Fury Road is a visceral experience. It is so gritty the sand gets under your fingernails. But it is not cheap. This is expensive action, executed by a master craftsmanship, at least on this occasion, George Miller, the director. But the film is not a numbing experience for all its action.

Themes

Some thought has obviously gone into it by the few references that you may not take with a grain of salt. Firstly, this is set in a world that has blown itself apart, leaving behind people struggling to survive, to get by. Indeed, the opening lines of the film, spoken by the Mad Max of the film’s title, played by Tom Hardy, sets the stage and from there on I was hooked, and the rest of the movie does not disappoint. But the words spoken are more than that. They say the world we are experiencing through this film is about survival, no more, no less. It’s real and tangible. It is also about what we find in the wastelands, hopefully our better selves, and what this means in a world beset by control and power of the earth’s resources, something’s got to give somehow. There is even a scene of one of the teenage ‘breeders’ praying to ‘whoever is listening’, one of those insert God moments. There are scenes of self-sacrifice, despite the damage done. This film even relates to our ‘pre-apocalyptic’ world we live in with its themes of water control and finding something to make the world better—I would say this can be where Jesus comes in, the self-sacrificing Good Shepherd, as much as one lets him in, as much as possible, one to another.

Reaction

In the end, one is blown away by the action spectacle of the year 2015 that even artfully expands on the theme in places, but also ends on a nice touch, where the world is in our hands, but how?

Cast: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Zoë Kravitz, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton. Screenplay: George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, and Nico Lathouris. Photography: John Seale, Production Designer: Colin Gibson, Editor: Margaret Sixel, Music: Tom Holkenborg aka Junkie XL, Costumes: Jenny Beavan. Director: George Miller. Released May 14, 2015.