A polished, testosterone-fuelled ride

GEORGE Miller's high-octane reboot Mad Max: Fury Road is the extremely noisy, brutally intense and wildly entertaining product of a warped imagination. It's nice to know that after 30 years in limbo, the man who created the classic Road Warrior series still knows how to push the post-apocalyptic, action-movie envelope.

Miller's latest instalment, set in the not-too-distant future, spent years in development hell, but has roared back to life, thanks to a budget that is in excess of US$150 million (compared to a measly $350,000 for the first Mad Max film in 1979) and a plot that is not much more complicated than an epic car chase across a desolate desert landscape. The result is so over the top and loaded with twisted metal, bullet-riddled bodies and non-stop action that "breath-taking" doesn't begin to describe it.

Despite a three-decade gap between the third Mad Max film (Beyond Thunderdome, 1985) and Fury Road, the transition - featuring Tom Hardy in the role that made Mel Gibson a bona fide action star - has been pretty seamless. Civilisation has collapsed, water and petrol are the currencies of choice and ex-cop Max Rockatansky (Hardy), haunted by visions of a dead child, still roams the Aussie outback (actually the Namib Desert) in search of some form of redemption.