ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Making an action epic against all odds…

Mad Max: Fury Road really shouldn’t have worked. It had been an awfully long time since the series’ last entry – 1985’s Beyond Thunderdome – and when it finally went into production it was beleaguered by problems. “There was often a feeling it wasn’t going to get made,” said director George Miller. “We were rained out of our locations in the outback of Australia. Ironically, the red desert turned into a flower garden.” Namibia was selected as a suitably parched alternative. Miller just needed a location to double for somewhere ‘like Australia’: this isn’t a film slowed down by specifics.

The streamlined idea for the film itself came to Miller as he was traversing a pedestrian crossing, but he convinced himself he didn’t want to make another Mad Max. A couple of years later, during a long night flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, the idea took shape in his head, and by the time he landed, a good two-thirds of it was mapped out. “By the time I landed in Sydney, I thought, ‘Oh my God, there’s a Mad Max movie. If it doesn’t go away I’m going to have to make it.’”

Hardy was chosen to step into Max’s boots because of his “animal-like quality… That’s the quality I first saw in Mel

Gibson when he played Mad Max at 21.” But it’s Charlize Theron’s Furiosa – all buzzcut and bionic arm – who’s the MVP here. She sets the story in motion by betraying big bad Immortan Joe, and driving off with his five ‘wives’. As Miller said in 2015, “Only time will tell, but I don’t think anyone’s ever seen anything quite like [Furiosa] in cinema before.” He wasn’t wrong. But ultimately, it was the incredible, real stuntwork that set the film apart. “Why CGI a car wreck when you can do it for real?” said Miller. “It helps the immersion when you have this sense that it is real.”

Fury Road stormed the Cannes Film Festival and earned the sort of universal critical acclaim generally reserved for arthouse dramas. It landed at the top of many ‘Best of 2015’ lists (including Total Film’s), and was a commercial success. But despite Fury Road’s success, there’s been no sign of the mooted sequel(s) yet. Miller recently said that there are “two stories, both involving Mad Max, and also a Furiosa story”, but legal issues at the studio need untangling before they can proceed. But let’s not rush Miller. After all, Fury Road was worth the wait.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD IS AVAILABLE ON DVD AND BLU-RAY.