Verdict: ✫✫✫1/2

So I finally managed to put the kids to bed, pop some popcorn and see Mad Max: Fury Road when it came out on Pay Per View, and I was literally speechless the entire time. I hardly had a second to throw popcorn at my mouth and was thankful I hadn’t tried seeing this in 3D or I’d have mortally injured myself. My wife couldn’t watch it. Forget it, and I figured as much because I’d rented it too late at night and she wouldn’t have been able to sleep. But you know, that’s pretty much par for the course in any given Mad Max flick. I, for one, was happy to see this one didn’t deviate from the octane level of the original movies.

George Miller tried getting Fury Road off the ground at the turn of the century but had some pretty major setbacks, not the least of which was September 11^th and Desert Storm. Mel Gibson apparently dropped his role in this one as Max when development couldn’t get it off the ground and the role finally went to Tom Hardy this year. With practical effects and ultrafast camera work, Miller wove a rather simple tale of redemption and “finding home” on nearly constant spinning of gigantic, treacherous wheels.

Unlike the previous Max installments where all things material are at a premium and gasoline is literally to die for, Fury Road is all about the value of people… specifically The Five Wives who belong to the notorious dictator Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). The Five Wives are pregnant and have escaped his clutches as stowaways inside the “War Rig” transporting gasoline from one city to another and driven by the infamous road warrior Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron). In a direct defiance of Immortan Joe’s reign, Furiosa suddenly yanks the War Rig in mid journey toward the East in search of a new home for the Five Wives and the chase is on.

Max (Hardy) all this time is just a lone survivor of the holocaust, a wanderer, who does what he can to survive in the arid landscapes of a post-nuclear world. He is suddenly captured by Immortan Joe’s devoted, brainwashed cronies called “War Boys” and found to be a universal blood donor, by which he is promptly hung in a cage and is used for donating blood to rejuvenate a War Boy named Nux (Nicholas Hoult). Nux needs Max to stay alive and give him a blood transfusion, but wants to join the search for the Five Wives to please his master Joe. So he takes Max with him and straps him to his suped up muscle car, and continues the transfusion as he jumps into the cross continental road(rage) trip. Tell me that’s not badass on so many levels. No really!

Basically, this entire movie a one long car chase. Much like the old westerns throughout the sixties, the Mad Max movies have always been wonderfully simple, beautifully imaginative and extremely fast paced. Fury Road is, with the onset of better quality film and graphics, even faster. With sped up scenes in places and flashes of clues here and there, this movie throws clues and story line at you like a crazy 120 minute roller coaster. Dialogue is kept to a minimum as words are not wasted. Looks and camerawork do most of the talking and as the movie races at breakneck pace across gorgeous desert vistas and through breathtaking continent-wide dust storms, you’re left as the end credits roll with a rapidly thumping heart and wide unbelieving eyes, wondering if you really did just see what you saw.

For an amazing analysis, see Ouroboros’s  thoughts on Fury Road here ~> http://ruggedgamers.com/mad-max-fury-road-review/

Hey everybody, we did it again! The Movie Madness Podcast gang got caught up in life. The bad news: we are way behind in letting you know what we think, “sigh.” The great news: you guys get a whole load of terrific mini-reviews to “catch up on” while we get to tell you what we think. Right or wrong, you gotta admit, all of us, Craig, Doug and Jeremy have lots of opinions and we stick to ’em (that is till Doug has to admit defeat). The good news: Craig and Jeremy are right there to give Doug a big hug and comfort him. It’s all warm fuzzies guys! And yes, we are prone to hyperbole (particularly Craig)!

Before we leave you and still on the subject, Craig, our Movie Maniac, was invited to join the guys at one of our favorite podcasts at In Session Film. He had a great time and we think he did us proud! Just click and check out the San Andreas, Top 3 Disaster Movies and WALL-E episode: episode 119.

As always, you can let us know what you think about any of our episodes, the movies we review or give us your Top 5s, 10s or 25s at: moviemadnesspodcast@gmail.com or call the voice mail # 260-573-0015 or post them to Twitter, Facebook or the Ultimate Movie Geeks community on Google+

And please let Craig know what you think too about episode 119. He was a basket case after.

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