Mad Max: Fury Road

With its spectacular car chases and bleak, grungy vision of the future that still influences sci-fi to this day, the Mad Max series still holds up very well after three decades. Or at least it did; after the long-gestating fourth installment Fury Road, I’m not so sure it will anymore. The film is the maddest Mad Max of them all, taking the series and its vehicular theatrics to a level so high the old movies seem like a Sunday drive by comparison. In fact, it’s not too much of a stretch to wonder if it renders the entire action genre prior to this point obsolete.

There are shootouts on top of brutal hand-to-hand combat on top of car chases (literally, on top of car chases). Souped-up death machines and motorcycles brave daredevil jumps while chucking explosives and exchanging gunfire, or just regular fire. One vehicle has several amplifiers attached while a passenger shreds on a guitar in place of drums of war, which makes absolutely no practical sense but is totally appropriate nonetheless amidst the chaos (and of course, said instrument later becomes a weapon). Explosions and crashes abound like a freeway pileup at a Fourth of July fireworks show. And yet, every sequence is imaginatively designed and choreographed within an inch of its life, with incredible stunts that leave the viewer with an awed appreciation, as opposed to a mocking disbelief.

Even when the mayhem subsides for a few brief instances, the film has the relentless tone and energy of an action sequence in every department. Comic relief? It’s as blunt as a punch in the gut and all the more effective for it. What about the tortured backstory of the title hero? Instead of slow and thoughtful moments, the picture cuts deep with intense, haunting visions that would be as at home in a horror movie. Even the very plot itself—in which loner Max (Tom Hardy, taking over the role from Mel Gibson) helps convoy driver Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and the enslaved “wives” of warlord Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) escape him and his minions across the post-apocalyptic Australian desert—is obviously built around the long, elaborate car chase battles, as were the plots of the preceding films.

It would be easy to simply write off the entire thing (and the whole series, for that matter) as empty, flashy popcorn violence, but doing so would be wrong, and vastly unfair to series writer-director George Miller and company. From the very first Mad Max, the main selling point was the automotive havoc, but Miller also infused the narratives with creative ideas about the breakdown of society and the dark future the movies presented. Some of them were funny, some just interestingly out-there, some even tragically sad. Most of these little tidbits were only established understatedly, through dialogue or quick views in the background, but that made them no less clever or interesting.

Despite packing Fury Road to the gills with vehicular destruction, Miller still establishes his pulpiest, most detailed future vision yet in the series, a disturbing cultish world with inventive traits too good to spoil. And though the movie never really slows enough for some introspective moments, it manages to feature character arcs with pathos within its action sequences. All the main characters have some depth: Nicholas Hoult as a doomed cult member, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Zoë Kravitz, Courtney Eaton, and Abbey Lee as the five “wives,” and especially Theron, who’s Max’s action hero equal in every way. And in the title role, Tom Hardy doesn’t even need to speak to sell us, so convincing is his mere presence and body language. He might even best Mel Gibson, as while Gibson exuded a smarmy cynicism in the role, Hardy’s surly stoicism is arguably more affecting.

The picture establishes the storyline so that it works as both a sequel for old fans and a starting point for new ones, and both parties will enjoy it equally. It’s a thrilling, wall-to-wall raging piece of entertainment that’s going to be hard for any action blockbuster this summer (or any summer) to top.