OVP: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Film: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Stars: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zoe Kravitz
Director: George Miller
Oscar History: 10 nominations/6 wins (Best Picture, Director, Sound Mixing*, Sound Editing*, Production Design*, Costume*, Cinematography, Visual Effects, Makeup*, Editing*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I have never seen the original Mad Max films starring Mel Gibson, but they've always been close to my "To Do" list.  The films of George Miller in general have alluded me-I think this is the second of his films I've seen (after Babe: Pig in the City) and I have to say I'm onboard.  After I saw this, I moved all three of the Mad Max pictures up a bit on my Netflix queue as well as both of the Happy Feet movies.  This action hero film is stylish, interesting, fascinating in a way that we genuinely have no idea who will live or die (we're pretty confident that Max will make it, but everyone else seems to be fair game, kind of like an episode of Game of Thrones).  In the end, the movie ends up being always wildly beautiful, occasionally infuriating but typically exhausting and addictive, a well-crafted look at the end of the world.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Max (Hardy), a survivor of nuclear war who wanders the desert wasteland, a shell of a man who is captured by a group of War Boys, the military arm of a grotesque tyrant named Immortan Joe (Keays-Byrne), and he is used as a "blood bag" by an ailing War Boy named Nux (Hoult).  The film progresses with Imperator Furiosa (Theron) going out into the world and trying to save five of Immortan Joe's wives (an array of Victoria's Secret-style supermodels...in fact I think some of them actually were Victoria's Secret models), all-the-while being pursued by Immortan Joe and his band of crazy characters.  Furiosa thinks that they can make it to the Green Place, but soon learn that like most things in this world, it no longer exists.  Still, she teams with a band of badass older women out on the road and take back the Citadel, where there is water and greenery, and find a potential new world, just as Max fades out of it.

The film's best elements, and there are a lot of them, surround mostly Miller's ability to build a world onto its own.  The interesting thing about the movie, which in many ways feels like a remake more than sequel (I suspect-honestly, I haven't seen the earlier films) is the way that he doesn't need much exposition to create a fantastical world here that feels authentic onto itself.  I talked about this a bit in Hellboy II, but world-building needs to feel real and not something where you needed to read the book or even see the previous film, and that's the case here-this world, desolate and alone in the bleakness of-we don't even know where, but somewhere horrible, seems totally believable and despite the crazy cast of characters (ranging from a mad-man guitar player to a baby-like humanoid that peers from atop Immortan Joe's tower) all seem roughly believable within this world.  This is clearly Earth, but it's not so much of a break from Earth to not be completely real  Helping the believability is a series of action scenes that are not only exhilarating, but also realistic-frequently we see in a movie that someone approaching from a mile out is there instantaneously, but that's not actually the case considering the speed of these desert buggies, and the fact that they will soon get there but we get a more real-time reaction just adds suspense.

Miller broke the piggybank with the crew, but man did it pay off.  Junkie XL provides an offbeat score for the film that combines classical elements of music with metal rock.  Perhaps best for us all, the director pulled Oscar-winner John Seale out of retirement to film the movie.  Seale, best known for his sensual desert vistas in The English Patient, is so fine at framing up nature and knows how to play with saturated color, making the sun-sweltering oranges and blues of the sky pierce the screen.  When we get a respite from these colors (which is rare-Miller knows how to make you feel the heat), he amps up the inventiveness, giving us some of the coolest blue-black night scenes I have seen in ages.  This is one of those movies that would have been fantastic in gigantic Cinemascope, as Seale is using that camera.

Overall the production values are routinely good.  I still think it's odd that the orgasmic appeal of Tom Hardy's face (seriously-he looks like the sort of guy that could convince literally any human being to sleep with him) keeps getting covered by masks, but other than that there's not really a loose end in the crew.  The film's script occasionally veers into the too-predictable (we know the entire film that Nux is going to be sacrificing himself for the greater good), and the performances run the gamut (from the brilliantly effective Theron to the hammier Hoult), but overall there's little to argue with in this movie.  I left wanting more, which is always a good thing, and confident that what I got next would be equally inventive, which is a great thing.

Those are my thoughts on Mad Max: Fury Road.  I'm confident you saw it, so since you did, what'd you think?  Do you also find yourself mesmerized by the production values?  Where do you sit on the performances?  And does it have a shot to get the first Mad Max Oscar nominations?  Share your thoughts in the comments!