Netflix has added Max: Fury Road, a movie the critics called “an eruption of craziness”, “barking” and “awe-inspiring”.
It scored 97% on the Tomatometer and when the 2016 awards season drew to a close it had bagged no less than six Oscars, the biggest haul at the ceremony. It felt like creator and director George Miller had punched a hole through cinema screens with Mad Max: Fury Road, taking it in an entirely different direction since Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome thirty years previously. He’d put the spotlight on two powerful central characters and created a post-apocalyptic world that was simultaneously terrifying and mesmerizing. And now it’s crash-landed on Netflix in the US and the UK.
The fourth in Miller’s action-packed series was set years after the collapse of what we would recognize as civilization, with the tyrant Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) forcing survivors of the apocalypse into slavery inside his desert fortress, The Citadel. His five young wives are trophies to him, so he’s enraged when they escape, helped by warrior Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron). She forges an alliance with the solitary, one-time captive Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) and, as Joe gives chase, they flee at speed across the scorching Wasteland in the massive, armored roadtrain, The War Rig.
The combination of a new Max, in the shape of Hardy, and Theron’s iron-fisted Furiosa, created a grudging respect on screen that worked perfectly alongside the chaos of the film. Theron also staked her claim to being one of the best women action actors around: Atomic Blonde followed (a sequel is due next year), as did three Fast And Furious installments and The Old Guard is still on Netflix in both the US and the UK. They all allowed her to kick ass in what became her trademark style.
Their respective performances were just part of the bigger picture. The film’s relentless quality, its pounding action and ferocious electronic music, all on the biggest of scales, meant that audiences felt as if they’d been battered over the head.
In the best possible way. That sense of exhaustion and its assault on the senses made for a massively entertaining experience, as did its high production values and indelible images. Those thrash metal guitarists, the War Rig and the then-emerging Nicholas Hoult turned one of the craziest movie franchises going into one of the most memorable and spectacular.
Nearly ten years later, its power remains intact. Post-apocalyptic settings have become inevitable regulars on our screens — the possibilities are seemingly endless — but there’s never been one that totally equals Miller’s Fury Road. It’s a near-impossible act to follow.
Mad Max: Fury Road is now on Netflix in the US and UK. The Old Guard is on Netflix in the US and UK.