It's been 30 years since Mad Max has appeared on the big screen. After the last version, Beyond Thunderdome, pretty much killed off the series, original director George Miller is back to make Mad Max as great a series as it used to be.
We are greeted to a new Mad Max, played by Tom Hardy, who has escaped his captivity and is constantly being haunted by the memories of his family being killed. Imperator Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron, has taken the wives of the main villain Immortan Joe, who is very much like a modern day Darth Vader. She plans to bring them to safety and freedom at the other end of what appears to be a vast desert in a post-apocalyptic world.
While the story seems rather pointless and confusing at times, the main thing is the giant car chase through the desert, which is the real premise of the movie. All the cars in the film are not only old fashioned cars, like a Mercedes and a Cadillac, but the entire chase seems quite real and believable. All the cars have been outfitted to survive the hot desert sands and also to keep going if shot at. The whole two hour chase makes you feel like you're actually taking part during the whole chase. There are some computer graphic scenes, but they do have a life-like feel to them, from the cars getting stuck in the muddy flats, to the giant sandstorms that sweep up cars in their paths.
It really doesn't matter whether you've seen the previous Mad Max movies or not. Much like the James Bond films, you can sort of easily figure out what's going on. The world has been reduced to a desert wasteland where people have turned into savages and will kill anyone just to survive. The main resource is water, which in a desert is quite hard to come by. So if you want to be grabbing the edge of your seat as you eagerly wait to see what happens next, Mad Max: Fury Road is one exciting car chase that will have you breathless by the very end.
