All roads for the last weeks led up to this point as we counted down the days from the very first Mad Max film all the way to the new Mad Max: Fury Road film. In this film, Tom Hardy takes over the reigns of the character Mad Max as he continues to travel through the wastelands of what is left of post-apocalyptic Earth. This time Max is captured by war crazy warlords and used for the type of blood he has to refuel the warboys (fighters for their leader). While on a supposed mission to gasoline town, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) steals the evil warlord Immortan Joe’s (Hugh Keays-Byrne) women in an attempt to bring them to safety. The only problem is that if she wants to bring them to safety, she’ll need all the help she can get including Max. The film also stars Zoë Kravitz (Divergent) as Toast The Knowing, Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: Days Of Future Past) as Nux, Josh Helman (Jack Reacher) as Slit, Nathan Jones (Fearless) as Rictus Erectus, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (Transformers: Dark Of The Moon) as The Splendid Angharad, Riley Keough (The Runaways) as Capable, Courtney Eaton in her first role as Cheedo the Fragile, John Howard (Young Einstein) as The People Eater, and the film was directed by the legendary George Miller. Before we get into the review, let’s check out some stats.
Hugh Keays-Byrne as Immortan Joe/Toecutter
I am just going to warn you right now that there are going to be some spoiler alerts in this paragraph so if you don’t want to know any of this info then stop reading. I did not realize going into this film that the original villain in the first Mad Max film in 1979 by the name of Toecutter was the villain in this film by the name of Immortan Joe. I have to say that Hugh Keays-Byrne put on great performances in both films, but this one he bumped up a notch playing a villain that was a typical totalitarian dictator. He is a man that has been in power of a society for so long because he held the keys to what the society needed and therefore he controlled them even to a point where he can’t breathe on his own, but it doesn’t matter because there are people in places of the society that help keep the facade alive and soldiers willing to die for him in exchange for immortality in the afterlife. Wow, this sounds kind of familiar doesn’t it? Immortan Joe is a symbol of where our society is today as we are constantly in battle with a region of the world who has minions that are willing to die for the belief of what comes in the afterlife. Immortan Joes society even matches that of the middle east where women are not important, but they are merely just breeders of future soldiers who will die for the cause. That is about as far as I’ll go in the article talking about the real life similarities.
I definitely want to get into the review of the film because that is what is truly important as well as pointing out some of the Easter eggs that I noticed in the film. You definitely knew that there were going to be a lot more kills in this film than any of the the three previous films in the series and I was hoping for that in a way. In the original three films, Mel Gibson’s Mad Max compiles a total of 40 kills/knockouts (with the most coming in The Road Warrior) while Tom Hardy’s Mad Max gets a total of 26 in one film. As usual in the last two of the original three films and in this one, there is no origin story and no love interest at all as well as no close friend hurt. The big boss is definitely defeated and all order is restored. Now as far as the Easter Eggs that I noticed from the film like the interceptor that he has for a total of five minutes or so in the film, gasoline town from the second film, and I could have sworn to see master blaster in this film, but the Master wasn’t sitting on a chair strapped to the back of him. One other thing that I noticed in the film was a little trinket that Zoë Kravitz is playing with in the truck looks identical to the one that Max is playing with in The Road Warrior that he gives to the wild boomerang kid. One thing that I do have to say about this film is that while Tom Hardy put on an exceptional performance, I felt the real star of the film was Charlize Theron. She put on not only a bad ass performance, but she put on the performance of a lifetime in this film. She definitely held her own with this generations next big thing in Tom Hardy. The film has everything you could ever want from a Mad Max film from non stop action, over the top characters and costumes, and even the drama that comes along. This is a definite candidate for Bad Ass Movie Of The Year and it may just be the winner as well. I a going to give the film five fists out of five for a final grade.
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