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.

"My world is fire and blood," he intones in voiceover at the start of the film, in what passes for a major speech. Soon after, Max is captured by disciples of King Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), the creepy-looking warlord who rules by fear over a wasteland and controls his subjects by limiting their access to water.

Max becomes a human blood bank to Joe's army of white-painted war boys, who muzzle him with a metal faceplate and tether him like a hood ornament to the front of a chariot - the distinctively cartoonish, high-powered armoured vehicles that play integral roles in every Mad Max movie.

The war boys are in pursuit of Furiosa (Charlize Theron), an Imperator or senior figure who has decided to make a run for freedom, with five of the king's wives in tow. She has a mechanical arm in place of a real one and drives a war rig - an elongated, multi-wheeled contraption - with consummate skill. The 2,000 horsepower at her disposal makes her well, fast and Furiosa, but she's still badly outnumbered and in need of assistance.

She and Max slug it out (very impressively) at first, but the initial animosity is replaced by mutual respect when they realise that they have a common enemy, and a common purpose. Together with a young war boy Nux (Nicholas Hoult), they set off towards a promised land of sorts, with Immortan Joe and various other weirdos (looking like extras in a Star Wars film) snapping at their heels.

The costumes and vehicles are suitably outrageous and the high-speed action sequences unfold in spectacular fashion. Miller's attention to detail - not to mention his demented sense of humour (look out for the heavy metal guitarist) - give Fury Road a more polished look and feel than that of its predecessors.

Hardy and Theron don't simply go through their paces either. Both are believable action stars and despite the lack of dialogue, provide the film with an emotional heft.

Mad Max: Fury Road, written by Miller with Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris, is a more exciting visceral experience than any explosion-filled Transformers film could hope to be. Miller's vision of the dystopian future is out of this world but if you decide to buy into the fantasy, it will provide believers with two hours of noisy, extravagant and testosterone-fuelled fun.

Rating: B