Mad Max: Fury Road Review

Miller's structure is a straight line drawn twice: drive out, turn around, drive back. That is the entire plot, and it is why the film works, because everything else, character and theme and history, has to be delivered inside motion. John Seale centers every composition so the eye never hunts during a cut, then grades the desert to a saturated orange and the nights to cobalt, and the result is legible action at speeds that should read as chaos.

The vehicles are real, the pole-cats swinging above the convoy are real, and the difference is visible in every frame. Charlize Theron's Furiosa carries the actual arc; Tom Hardy's Max is closer to a piece of equipment, a deliberate and slightly costly choice. Dialogue is minimal and the scripture-speak occasionally lands flat. But the sandstorm, the pole-cats, and the Doof Warrior's flamethrowing guitar are pure cinema invention, and the return run across the salt flats is one of the great sustained sequences of the century.