George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road runs 121 minutes and barely stops moving. The fourth film in the Mad Max franchise puts Tom Hardy behind the wheel as Max Rockatansky and Charlize Theron beside him as Imperator Furiosa, and the whole thing is one long road battle across a desert where petrol and water are scarce.
Trailer, via Warner Bros..
The Citadel and Immortan Joe
The setup is spare and fast. Hugh Keays-Byrne plays Immortan Joe, a warlord who rules a fortress called the Citadel and keeps five “wives” — Toast, Capable, Cheedo, the Dag and Angharad. Two of them, the Dag and Angharad, are pregnant with his children. When Joe learns the wives have fled in Furiosa’s armoured War Rig, he leads his entire army after them.
Max as a Universal Donor
Max is a universal donor, captured and strapped to a car so he can transfuse blood to Nux, a sick War Boy played by Nicholas Hoult. That detail is the film’s best piece of economy: Max begins the story as a resource, not a hero. He frees himself only after Nux tries to blow up the Rig.
A Road Battle That Never Lets Up
Furiosa has prearranged to trade petrol for safe passage through a canyon run by a biker gang. The bikers betray her the moment they spot Joe’s army, detonate the canyon walls and give chase. Joe drives over the blockade in a monster truck.
The cast around Hardy and Theron is deep:
- Riley Keough as Capable
- Zoë Kravitz as Toast the Knowing
- Abbey Lee as The Dag
- Courtney Eaton as Cheedo the Fragile
- Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as The Splendid Angharad
- Nathan Jones as Rictus Erectus
- Josh Helman as Slit
Miller’s Long Road to the Screen
Miller came up with the idea in 1987. The film sat in development for years. Attempts to shoot in the 2000s were delayed by the September 11 attacks, the Iraq War and controversies around Mel Gibson, which pushed Miller to recast the role of Max. He picked the project back up in 2007 after Happy Feet, announced a 2011 start, and cast Hardy in June 2010.
What Holds and What Doesn’t
Keays-Byrne, in his final film role, gives Joe the weight the film needs. Theron carries the emotional line. Hardy is good but has less to do — Max is a passenger in his own movie for long stretches.
The chase is the point, and Miller keeps it clean and readable. What it lacks is a reason to slow down. The film is a machine built for momentum, and it never quite earns its quieter beats.
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