Mad Max: Fury Road

Of course this new Mad Max is waaaay over the top, which is exactly what all the young men in the jam-packed theater came to see. In my opinion George Miller's original 1979 "Mad Max" with Mel Gibson is a classic, so it's no surprise that our hero is still a loner, still on the move and still sort of a Lone Ranger.

Once again, Miller is depicting his home ground, so we are back in the Outback (actually Namibia) with its heat, desolation and dust, where gruesome violence is the norm and petroleum is the coin of the realm.

The cast:

• Charlize Theron ("Hancock") Furiosa is trying to rescue the "breeders," young, leggy, scantily clad women who have been selected to service the leaders. She plans to relocate them to her childhood home and stop their exploitation (mothers' milk is "gathered" and distributed to the men).
• Tom Hardy ("Locke") Max doesn't admit his name until near the end, even though we in the audience never had any doubt. He's troubled by nightmares which he explains are caused by unresolved issues. (Maybe he doesn't say it exactly that way...) Max is a fierce and resourceful guy.
• Nicholas Hoult ("Warm Bodies") We first meet Nux as he is getting a transfusion of blood from captive Max. He is excited about "going to Valhalla" (dying for the cause) as he fights for his grotesque leader.
• Hugh Keays-Byrne ("Mad Max" Toecutter in that one) is Immortan Joe, the rabidly insane leader of the cult from which our lovely "breeders" are in flight.
• Rosie Huntington-Whiteley ("Transformers") The Splendid Anghard is almost six months pregnant when she flees with Furiosa and her fellow captives. Spoiler alert: Yeah, she goes into labor at the worst possible time....
• Riley Keough ("Magic Mike") Capable is just that...capable. Elvis Presley's granddaughter has been a professional actress since 2010.
• Zoë Kravitz ("Insurgent") Toast the Knowing turns out to be a pretty capable gal too, and ends up pulling her own weight in the huge melee that results from the "breeders'" flight.

Movies these days try to out-gross each other, and not just at the box office: we see hideous characters, outrageous vehicles, amazing stunt work from Cirque du Soleil daredevils, and LOTS of creative blowie uppie stuff. I've suspended disbelief, but I can't help but think "Traumatic Brain Injury" as I watch some of these scenes, but I check the audience around me and every young man is riveted by the non-stop action (and those scantily clad females). Obviously this movie does exactly what it is designed to do.

This is rated "R" so expect 120 looong minutes of post-apocalyptic battle (on moving vehicles) with over-the-top mayhem. You'll see plenty of blood (at one point a gout of blood splashes over the camera lens), hear lots of gunfire from a variety of weapons, and dodge pieces of scrap metal as vehicles explode; but no kisses and no sex. Whew!

By the way, that scrap metal is the only time I felt 3D was used properly, so don't $pend extra for the 3D upgrade!

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Here's what they do:
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1898754329
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