SPLATTERdrome

Release Date: May 15th, 2015

Director: George Miller

Screenwriter: George Miller, Brendan McCarthy & Nico Lathouris

Genre: Science fiction/Action

 

 

Fury Road, a fourth installment in the long dormant Mad Max franchise, feels simultaneously familiar and inexplicably alien. The desolate backdrop, thrilling chases, and camera work recall The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome but it's all so damn useless. Our long standing hero Max, presumably the character audiences are coming to see, all but disappears behind the narratives of new additions Nux and Furiosa. Why make another Mad Max film if Tom Hardy has to sit in the passenger seat?

 

Writer/director George Miller never had much success fleshing out back story for his characters or the origin of their world and he seems to have completely lost interest in trying. Viewers who did not see the original trilogy of films are given no understanding of who Max is or why he's fighting for survival alone in the wastes. Fury Road provides little more information about its supposed lead than "I used to be a cop" and "Max. My name is Max". Wow. Profound.

 

Friends and fellow reviewers alike have countered these critiques by reminding me of how "beautiful and exciting" the film is. I agree that Fury Road is visually impressive but I'm not sure what's exciting about not using your brain. Tom Hardy grunting and shooting his way through a thin script certainly doesn't thrill me, no matter how well-lit the sand is. If you want car chases and explosions for hours on end then why not just play the video game?