Mad Max: Fury Road (English, 2015)

It is a nightmare to review a film like ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ which breaks convention. You wonder at the director’s imagination & guts to make a ‘relentless-chase’ sort-of film and the confidence & ability to make it work. The amount of story-boarding that must have gone behind choreographing the stunts & the shots is unreal.

There is enough smattering of good writing with the Mexican Standoff sequence between Max, Furiosa & the Wives and happenings when the group reaches Furiousa’s old clan. The acting talent that Charlize Theron (as Furiosa), Tom Hardy (as Max) and Nicholas Hoult (as Nux) possess is evident in these places. But deliberately such sequences have been minimalized & all of the actors are required to perform some mind-boggling stunts in the Namibian desert. Not sure how many were stunt doubles though.

Such films are often accused of being majorly shot within a studio on a green mat, but when coming to know that 80% of the effects seen in the film are real practical effects and stunts/make-up/ sets have very minimal CGI usage, the mind is definitely blown. The production design is again exquisite, with vehicles or the rigs as they call it, having an imposing structure. Little things that are added to the vehicles such as the thorny tires certainly add a certain dystopian flavor to the tale.

The Music & the Sound Design team deserve all the credit that they are being showered with, for it is their work in the background, particularly the incessant drum beats, that sets the pulse racing. It is evident that George Miller recognizes the importance of music that he makes sure that a huge set of drummers & that rambunctious guitarist are a part of the entourage.

While it is unfair to nitpick and say that more time could have been devoted to the plot, I believe a bit more screen-time for the immense accumulated natural wealth of ‘Immortan’ Joe would have been good to see. Perhaps, we might get to know somewhere down the line in the Series!