Review Rating: 4.5/5

The fourth installment of the Mad Max Trilogy is an action packed movie guaranteed to have your attention captivated by ruthless mongrels and fearless heroes. It features many compelling characters with a sense of depth because of their tests of morality and brutal savageness.

In the post apocalyptic world, the city of Citadel is controlled by a dictator ruler, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). He’s constructed an army system in which several males are abusively conditioned from a young age to be aggressive killing machines, inhabiting no sense of moral values, and undergo intimidating physical mutilations such as scarification, tattoo inscriptions, and ghost white powder.

They look and act as crazed amateurs, seeking approval from Joe as if he is their father and they will do anything to protect him. This is humorously displayed in scenes when they are out on the desert wasteland in battle. One of the main characters, Nux (Nicholas Hoult) who is desperate for Joe’s approval, continuously attempts and then fails to please Joe; from a viewer’s perspective, this is ironic how much he cares for Joe’s attention since clearly he is simply just one of his pawns.

Another moralistic aspect of this film is unexpectedly brilliant. In Joe’s male dominated sea of army followers, there is one female, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) who is a part of Joe’s army though she is secretly rebelling against his orders. She is driving a massive truck in the wasteland and without his knowledge, she’s saved his five impregnated wives or slaves (used for breeding and birth right property) from him. Furiosa plans to seek salvation by driving to her homeland called “The Green Place”.

On an interview with vanityfair.com, Director George Miller explains his new found perspective, “I’ve gone from being very male dominant to being surrounded by magnificent women. I can’t help but be a feminist”.

Miller proudly shows this in his film – Furiosa saving the wives from a brutal life with Joe. Plus, this undoubtedly took an enormous amount of courage for the wives to run away from their abusive and controlling husband. Bonding together to pursue a better future for themselves and their baby, this theme about escaping a abusive partner is truly inspiring.

In Furiosa’s and the wives’s mission to escape, Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) comes into play. His character is fearlessly complex, helping them escape from Joe’s army, plus he instinctively attacks Joe’s pawns one by one along with Furiosa. As Max is helping the escaping women he secretly relives the psychological traumas of his past.

Randomly, Max would see images of a little girl scared, frantically telling him that she is in danger and needs his help. It was like a dream sequence, riveting his past that he couldn’t save this little girl. His visions continue to haunt him. Helping Furiosa and the wives is helping him to forgive himself for his past failures.

In comparison to the previous Mad Max movies, an obvious improvement is there is not a hint of cheesy moments. The Mad Max franchise is renewed with a whole new style and moments of obscene dark humor.

Alongside these complex characters and story line, what made the movie more unique is the overall look including the steampunk style, special effects, and entertaining action sequences. That is what made this film special from the rest of the other tiresome and repetitive action films – a breath of fresh air.