MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult
Writers: George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nico Lathouris
Director: George Miller

At long last, George Miller's continuation of the Mad Max story finally roars on to the big screen a mere thirty years after Beyond Thunderdome. Was it worth the wait? Read on to find out...

In his fourth outing, Max (Hardy stepping into Mel Gibson's shoes) is once again alone in the post-apocalyptic wilderness but as with the second and third movies any peace he was hoping to find is very, very short lived. This time his path crosses with that of Imperator Furiosa (Theron), a lieutenant of masked lunatic despot Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, who was also biker gang leader The Toecutter in the original Mad Max). Immortan Joe is the ruler of a place called The Citadel, where he controls the water supply and keeps the locals in check via his team of Imperators and an army of pale, brainwashed followers called The War Boys.

Furiosa really pisses off Joe by making a sudden run for it in a kitted-out "war rig" vehicle with several of his "breeders" - young women who have been selected to bear his children - in an attempt to start a new life away from The Citadel in an area Furiosa refers to as "The Green Place". Hot on their trail is Joe's considerable army which includes Nux (Hoult), who believes Joe's proclamations that a War Boy will gain entry to Valhalla if he succumbs to a glorious death in combat on the Fury Road. With Furiosa hopelessly outmanned and outgunned, is Max going to help out? Well, there wouldn't be much of a movie if he didn't.

If you go into this movie looking for a complicated plot and lots of character development you may feel a bit short-changed. However, as an action movie this raises the bar to an insane level. For most of its two hours, you're in one long chase. And I mean that you're literally "in" it. CGI is used but only when absolutely necessary. The remainder of the time these are real vehicles, going at real speed, being involved in real, spectacular, destructive crashes and you feel every impact. These sequences are not only astonishing and exhilarating, they're stunningly beautiful to look at. They're genuine works of art.

For a movie with Mad Max in its title, the proceedings arguably lean more towards Furiosa than Max himself and Theron's superb performance towers over the film. With her shaved head and metallic, prosthetic arm she certainly looks like someone you wouldn't want to mess with as she drives, shoots and fights her way through the bad guys. That's not to say that Tom Hardy doesn't do a decent enough job in the title role, even if his accent visits several different places around the globe. The problem is that Max is a man of action, a man of few words (often of no words and just the odd grunt) and the plot does tend to focus on the more intriguing Furiosa so Hardy's really got his work cut out trying not to get blown off the screen by the amazing Theron.

Likewise, the "breeders" are sketchily drawn and there's little time to get to know them between the dazzling sequences of vehicular mayhem but Riley Keough makes her mark and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley manages to banish some of the memories of her "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" appearance by not being unrelentingly wooden. Let's be frank, Ms H-W is not going to give Charlize Theron any sleepless nights as far as her acting prowess goes but as the brilliantly-named The Splendid Angharad she's fine here. As for Hoult, he's almost unrecognisable as Nux but he turns in some engaging work here, being crazy, amusing and sympathetic, often all at once.

Yes, the plot is about as basic as it gets but there's an argument to be made that to complicate matters with a deeper story would be to dilute the pure shot of breathtaking action that George Miller has delivered here. The camerawork is absolutely astounding, the editing exemplary, the stuntwork staggering. It's the most fun I've had watching a movie in a very long time and I can't wait to see it again. I've studiously avoided giving too much away here so that you can go to see it and then try to pick your jaw up from the floor as I did.

The best action movie ever made? It's certainly right up there.