Entertainment

Film Review: ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’

Published

9 years ago

May 15, 2015

By Dwight Brown
NNPA Syndication Film Critic

It seems like just yesterday—well three decades ago—when a brash Australian actor, Mel Gibson, stormed on to the screen in the post-apocalyptic Australian Outback action film Mad Max. The original director/writer George Miller has breathed new life into that classic franchise and the result is an absolutely riveting, visually arresting and perfectly acted film that sets up a netherworld where water and gasoline are at a premium, evildoers rule and humanity is down on its luck.

Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy, The Dark Knight Rises), the Road Warrior, is a loner, wandering the desert wasteland until he is caught and imprisoned by pasty white War Boys who have sworn allegiance to a diabolical leader, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, Mad Max), who treats the plebeians who live in his outpost, a Citadel, like peons. He lords over them, with the generosity of Marie Antoinette, sometimes giving them a bit of the coveted commodity H2O.

All fear him except Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron, Monster). She is a warrior who drives a fuel tank rig. Her job is to pick up gasoline, but on one fateful day she goes off course to find her homeland. And she has the Immortan’s wives—breeders—hidden inside her tanker. She’s helping them escape. She and her cargo are being followed—chased by Immortan Joe and his men. Fate puts Max in her path. And so it begins.

As with the original Mad Max, the core of this film is the action sequences, with trucks, tanks, motorcycles and other vehicles in a near constant state of chase and chaos. The stunts, all real and not CGI, are amazing to watch. They are a testament to George Miller’s visionary direction. He sets a style, somewhere between sci-fi, adventure, action and thriller, and rarely takes the pressure off. John Seale’s cinematography is so graphic that the fiery rust color of the Namibian desert is burned in your eyes and the arid parched wilderness so dry you thirst for water. Fight scenes, gun battles, flamethrowers, stabbings and characters dangling in-between menacing wheels… It’s a parade of mind-numbing action (stunt coordinator Guy Norris) that glues your eyes to the screen.

The netherworld that Miller, co-screenwriters Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris and production designer Colin Gibson create looks alternately like a desert war zone, the backstage of a Wagner opera and a stock car race on steroids. There is no preparation for what you will see, even if you can remember the old Mad Max series. There are also moments in which the dialogue is evocative, “My name is Max. My world is fire and blood,” or revealing, “I am the one who runs from both the living and the dead.”

Though Max and Furiosa are enigmatic characters, you don’t feel like you need to know more about them than you do. They have gravitas, as do most of the supporting characters except for the crew of super models who play The Wives. They are a faux pas. They look like refugees from a Victoria’s Secrets ad.

There could be a good debate about who interprets Max better, Mel Gibson or Tom Hardy. Hard to imagine Gibson, in his present state, ever being rough enough to be Max. But back in the day, he handled it well. Tom Hardy, a 37-year-old 5’9” actor looks like an ageless giant on screen. Laconic, tough, mysterious, haunted, his Max is fighting as many demons inside as outside. Theron, who had not found another role as career-defining as her Oscar-winning turn as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster, takes this opportunity to show she is all guts. You never question her ability to drive a truck the length of a railroad car, or beat down a warrior, or take a bullet. She is the real deal. Keays-Byrne plays Immortan Joe like a villain from Shakespeare. Very theatrical. Very flamboyant. The more subtle performance comes from Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: Days of Future Past), who gives the War Boy named Nux a cunning, devious side and an innocence that makes him more complex than the rest.

When the chase scenes subside, there are moments of depth, clarity and exposition. There are also some lapses in judgment and timing. There are points when the lush cinematography focuses on scenes (The Wives pouting) that belong in a Vogue magazine and not a hardcore action film. There are gaps when people seem to be staring off into space. Clocking in at 120 minutes, the movie can be excused for these faults. Once Furiosa puts her bloodied foot on the accelerator, or Max leaps to another truck to kill a fiend, or a vehicle somersaults and bursts into flames, all is forgiven.

The memories of the original Mad Max series are intact. This is not more of the same. Fury Road takes you down a different trail. More arty, more violent, more relentless, more pageantry. If this is just the first in a series to come, imagine what’s coming next. Just imagine.

Visit NNPA Syndication Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.

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Oakland Post: Week of April 17 – 23, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 17 – 23, 2024

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April 19, 2024

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O.J. Simpson, 76, Dies of Prostate Cancer

Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson, who rose to fame as a college football player who went on to the NFL and parlayed his talents in acting and sportscasting, succumbed to prostate cancer on April 10, his family announced.

Published

1 week ago

April 17, 2024

Oakland Post

Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson. Wikipedia photo

By Post Staff

Born and raised in San Francisco, the Galileo High School graduate was recruited by the University of Southern California after he was on a winning Junior College All-American team.

At USC, he gained wide acclaim as a running back leading to him becoming the No. 1 pick in the AFL-NFL draft in 1969 and joining the Buffalo Bills, where he had demanded – and received — the largest contract in professional sports history: $650,000 over five years. In 1978, the Bills traded Simpson to his hometown team, the San Francisco 49ers, retiring from the game in 1979.

Simpson’s acting career had begun before his pro football career with small parts in 1960s TV (“Dragnet”) before “Roots” and film (“The Klansman,” “The Towering Inferno,” Capricorn One”).

He was also a commentator for “Monday Night Football,” and “The NFL on NBC,” and in the mid-1970s Simpson’s good looks and amiability made him, according to People magazine, “the first b\Black athlete to become a bona fide lovable media superstar.”

The Hertz rent-a-car commercials raised his recognition factor while raising Hertz’s profit by than 50%, making him critical to the company’s bottom line.

It could be said that even more than his success as a football star, the commercials of his running through airports endeared him to the Black community at a time when it was still unusual for a Black person to represent a national, mainstream company.

He remained on Hertz team into the 1990s while also getting income endorsing Pioneer Chicken, Honey Baked Ham and Calistoga water company products and running O.J. Simpson Enterprises, which owned hotels and restaurants.

He married childhood sweetheart Marguerite Whitley when he was 19 and became the father of three children. Before he divorced in 1979, he met waitress and beauty queen Nicole Brown, who he would marry in 1985. A stormy relationship before, during and after their marriage ended, it would lead to a highway car chase as police sought to arrest Simpson for the murder by stabbing of Brown and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994.

The pursuit, arrest, and trial of Simpson were among the most widely publicized events in American history, Wikipedia reported.

Characterized as the “Trial of the Century,” he was acquitted by a jury in 1995 but found liable in the amount of $33 million in a civil action filed by the victims’ families three years later.

Simpson would be ensnared in the criminal justice system 12 years later when he was arrested after forcing his way into a Las Vegas hotel room to recover sports memorabilia he believed belonged to him.

In 2008, he received a sentence of 33 years and was paroled nine years later in 2017.

When his death was announced, Simpson’s accomplishments and downfalls were acknowledged.

Sports analyst Christine Brennan said: “… Even if you didn’t love football, you knew O.J. because of his ability to transcend sports and of course become the businessman and the pitchman that he was.

“And then the trial, and the civil trial, the civil case he lost, and the fall from grace that was extraordinary and well-deserved, absolutely self-induced, and a man that would never be seen the same again,” she added.

“OJ Simpson played an important role in exposing the racial divisions in America,” attorney Alan Dershowitz, an adviser on Simpson’s legal “dream team” told the Associated Press by telephone. “His trial also exposed police corruption among some officials in the Los Angeles Police Department. He will leave a mixed legacy. Great athlete. Many people think he was guilty. Some think he was innocent.”

“Cookie and I are praying for O.J. Simpson’s children … and his grandchildren following his passing. I know this is a difficult time,” Magic Johnson said on X.

“I feel that the system failed Nicole Brown Simpson and failed battered women everywhere,” attorney Gloria Allred, who once represented Nicole’s family, told ABC News. “I don’t mourn for O.J. Simpson. I do mourn for Nicole Brown Simpson and her family, and they should be remembered.”

Simpson was diagnosed with prostate cancer about a year ago and was undergoing chemotherapy treatment, according to Pro Football Hall of Fame President Jim Porter. He died in his Las Vegas, Nevada, home with his family at his side.

He is survived by four children: Arnelle and Jason from his first marriage and Sydney and Justin from his second marriage. He was predeceased son, Aaren, who drowned in a family swimming pool in 1979.

Sources for this report include Wikipedia, ABC News, Associated Press, and X.