Mad Max: Fury Road: Buckle Up

As suggested by its title, Mad Max: Fury Road is a relentless frenetic movie that is quite unlike anything you will have previously witnessed in theaters. I had zero desire to watch this film but after the outpouring of critical acclaim, I had to give this film a shot. And now I must urge you to watch it too.

Based on the 1980s Mad Max franchise starring Mel Gibson (which I had never heard of and have never seen), this movie stars Tom Hardy as Max Rockatansky, a lone man who wanders the apocalyptic desert hellscape of Earth after nuclear war has destroyed most of civilization and left the rest of humanity in a relatively savage state. At the beginning of the movie, Max is captured by the War Boys, the army of a crazed cult leader named Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Joe has all the power because he controls the water supply and he is surrounded by an army of bloodthirsty young men who are willing to die for the glory of serving him. He also has a harem of young wives, aka "breeders," who serve merely to provide him with more offspring who can fight for him and carry on his bloodline. And this is where Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) comes in. She is Joe's dependable lieutenant, a fierce and powerful woman supremely skilled in battle. However, she has decided that she can't watch him treat his wives in this way. She hides them in her armored truck and determines to take them back to where she came from, the "Green Place," an Amazonian idyll where women led their own lives instead of being subject to the whims and vagaries of an insane tyrant.

There's nothing more to add in terms of plot here. The rest of the movie just unfolds as an epic car chase as Joe chases Furiosa through the desert, trying to get his wives back. Through a complicated set of circumstances, Max gets allied with Furiosa mid-chase and the two of them battle with Joe's crazy army while driving a giant steampunk train-like contraption through the desert and engaging in death-defying stunts that make your head spin with all the intricate artistry and violence involved. This is a jaw-droppingly gorgeous movie, shot in Namibia and brimming with stunning landscapes that are all the more impressive for being real rather than CGI. The action set pieces are ridiculous, and Charlize Theron's performance is insanely fantastic. Forget that the movie is called Mad Max: this is very much Furiosa's movie and Max is just a silent participant who monosyllabically grunts and fights by her side. 

Writer-director George Miller has triumphantly succeeded in creating a wild and weird movie that needs to be seen to be believed. Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the few movies released every year that I insist have to be seen on the big screen because it is an immersive, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride. It has a hypnotic, mesmerizing effect on your brain where you discover you've been holding your breath as the umpteenth battle sequence assaults your eyeballs and explodes on screen in a bloody and indescribably beautiful way. So give this movie a shot and discover what all the hype is about.