The Road Warrior revs back to life in Max Mad: Fury Road

Like its predecessors, this fourth installation of the Mad Max franchise highlights anti-Uopia, apocalyptic (plus post-apocalyptic) premises, visuals and imagery of survival and redemption in the mad, mad world of the Road Warrior''s Max Rockatansky.

The movie rolled off with a series of masculine fun, 45 years after the fall of the world where it is all about fight, dust, dirt, diesel and blood bath until a feminist agenda got into the picture. All hell breaks loose, so to speak.

Tom Hardy from The Dark Knight Rises and Child 44 successfully carried on the legacy of the stone cold and furiously brutal Max Rockatansky who is perpetually haunted by his turbulent past, haunted by those he failed to save, all in the form of some schizophrenic mental flashes in his mind.

This tormenting images of the indescribable in his head opens the movie (complete with macho narration) drives Mad Max to wander off on his own, across a desert plateau, biting off a two-headed lizard, questioning the meaning of life, torn by wars for water and oil.

Consequently, Mad Max sees himself drawn into a huge mad mess of trouble with the power of the aging warlord Immortan Joe played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, along with his army of pale and bald War Boys in the black Interceptor from the first two films: Mad Max and The Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. And like all Mad Max movies, Mad Max gets caught and is held prisoner.

Citadel—the most fortified stronghold in the Wasteland is where the plot sees a battle of ugly old boys and War Boys chasing after the modelesque, dirty War Rig gear-head-truck-driver-soldier-slave gone-rogue called Furiousa, played by Charlize Theron who smuggles to save the warlords’ harem of wives whom they lovingly called ‘breeders’ and drive them to a place what Furiosa claims as the greener pasture she once was from.

From then, Mad Max: Fury Road takes its audience to a road that leads to a furiously series of chainsaw whirling action, volcanic like combustion, explosions and a whole lot of trust issues between Mad Max, some angry mad women and men (including mad angry beautiful pregnant women).

It seems that the film director who is also the originator of the Mad Max film series, the Australian, Oscar Award winner, George Miller is on a mission to express his repressed desire for a real power-pumping action film.

It is brilliant how Miller also maintains, formulates and managed to slip in the rock and roll element in the franchise by incorporating an actual electric guitarist rocking on some amplified solo tunes during the whole battle, bringing the understated and raw pop-culture that we were familiar with --which brings a whole anti-glamour and anti-hero feel to this installment.

From directing and producing family-oriented films like Happy Feet and Babe, it was a huge shift for former medical doctor, Miller who is back directing a powerhouse action movie.

And though Mel Gibson might (currently) be too mad (and too old) to land himself the star role once again and reliving the 1979’s nostalgia, Tom Hardy is the perfect cast for this century’s Mad Max – meaner, bolder and madder.

What I love most about this movie -- though I merely have vivid flashes of the original Mad Max and its series (err... I was born in 1979), I love how despite the visual diarrhea of jam-packed action, hard-hitting bullet kind of violence, the rendition of savage attack on humanity and slavery, lies a beauty and weird poignancy of death, survival and even life.

And, that in some weird way sends a sense of clarity on what humanity might look like in the (hopefully) not-so-near mad future.

Directed and written by: George Miller

Cast: Tom Jardy, Charlize Theron, Hugh Keyes-Byrne, Nicolas Hoult

Release date: 14 May

Watch the Mad Max: Fury Road trailer here