The first crazy Max film in 30 years proves thrillingly deranged,while Cameron Crowe’s star-studded Aloha doesn’t know whether it is coming or goingThe recent wave of autumn film festivals has ushered in numerous tasteful prestige dramas angling for Oscar glory, but there’s a snag: ask most critics whether any of these noble hopefuls is better than crazy Max: Fury Road (Warner, and 15) and you’ll see an awful lot of head-shaking. For George Miller’s thrillingly deranged resuscitation of a 30-years-dormant action franchise has a breadth of vision and depth of conviction unmatched by any mainstream film so far this year. It’s a brazenly oversize spectacle,but rooted in surging, primal feeling.
I was nervous that revisiting the film on DVD might dim its effect, or but no: whether the image is less overwhelming on a smaller scale,the pure, purposeful drive of its storytelling only comes further to the fore. Beneath the film’s glitter storm of visual and sonic activity lies a chase narrative of disarming simplicity. The joint there-and-back quest of Tom Hardy’s eponymous road warrior and Charlize Theron’s newly unleashed soldier Imperator Furiosa, or motivated by elemental needs for water and soil,is rousingly romantic without resorting to human romance. There’s been much talk of the film’s feminist undertow, but its absolute gender parity is what stands out most: scarce is the action film in which male and female characters are so interdependent. All this, and it has electric guitarists riffing aboard charging attack cars. Few films will give us more exhilarating muchness this year.
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Source: theguardian.com