Jasin Boland/Warner Bros.
Currently holding an impressive 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, "Fury Road" has received nearly unanimous praise from critics, who believe it lives up to the promise set up by its thrilling trailer with many calling it a work of art.
The film is a sequel to Australian director George Miller's popular Mad Max series, which kicked off in 1979. "Fury Road" takes place in a post-apocalyptic world many years after the events of the original trilogy. Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) teams up with Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to try and restore order to this hellish world.
"Fury Road" cost an estimated $150 million to make and took about a decade to bring to screen. So far, it seems like this huge gamble will pay off.
Here's what the critics are saying:
Everyone loves it.
In a movie season exhaustingly cluttered with never-ending superhero sagas and reboots, "Fury Road" arrives, despite its pedigree, as a daring, fascinating, thrilling jolt of original energy.
George Miller has crafted his finest film here, displaying an insanely uncompromising brilliance in pure action-adventure filmmaking. It is quite simply the best film of the year so far.
The word "masterpiece" is getting thrown around a lot.
The post-apocalypse hath no fury like a one-armed woman... George Miller pulls off a rarity in Hollywood blockbusters these days: A muscular action masterpiece built on practical effects, weighty and awe-inspiring.
There are many ways to sum up a movie like "Mad Max: Fury Road," but let's just say that it is a masterpiece and a must-see -- two hours of stunningly gorgeous post-apocalyptic mayhem. This isn't just one of the best action movies of the year -- it may eventually go down as one of the best action movies ever made.
It's pleasing, then, that "Mad Max: Fury Road" is Miller's masterpiece.
Many are highlighting the stunning visuals.
Jasin Boland/Warner Bros./"Mad Max: Fury Road"
If Francisco Goya painted Heavy Metal magazine, it'd look something like Fury Road.
There are visuals in "Mad Max: Fury Road" that won't soon be forgotten, from the sight of a trussed-up Hardy attached to a car like a ship's mast to the mother of all sandstorms to the heavy-metal guitarist and drummers that accompany the War Boys into battle to the secret of how the elites in Joe's kingdom stay so well-fed.
Jasin Boland/Warner Bros./"Mad Max: Fury Road"
The colors are bold, the Namibia locations look like Arizona on steroids, virtually all the action looks real (thoughts of CGI only intrude with the massive dust clouds and certain personal and vehicular wipeouts), cinematographer John Seale's cameras are everywhere they need to be to record the action maximally, and Junkie XL's score hammers and soars.
Like Max himself, Miller's stripped-down approach to staging intense and involving action sequences stands alone.
Tom Hardy is being hailed as a more than worthy replacement for Mel Gibson, who originally held the role of Max.
Birth.Movies.Death [formerly Badass Digest]:
Tom Hardy steps in for Mel Gibson in the role of Max Rockatansky, very far removed from the early days of the first "Mad Max." Hardy isn't doing a Gibson impression, and the loose continuity of the series allows the new hire to seamlessly integrate himself into the world, in a way that most new Bonds wish for. Hardy's Max is shockingly funny; many of his best momets have him exasperated or baffled.
Hardy is great at this, so great though that it makes me wonder if we still need to follow Max through this world anymore.
Director George Miller, who is now 70, is earning high praise for capturing a sort of energy that a lot of filmmakers half his age typically cannot.
Warner Bros. Tom Hardy on set of "Mad Max: Fury Road" alongside director George Miller.
"Fury Road" not only captures the same Molotov-cocktail craziness of Miller's masterpiece, 1981's "The Road Warrior"-it's also a surprisingly hypercaffeinated film for a director in his fifth decade behind the camera."
THR:
George Miller has directed only five films in that time ? three of which starred pigs and penguins ? but it can safely be said that this madly entertaining new action extravaganza energetically kicks more ass, as well as all other parts of the anatomy, than any film ever made by a 70-year-old - and does so far more skillfully than those turned out by most young turks half his age.
George Miller..70...is releasing a movie that has all the energy and vitality of a young man's work, but all the control and precision of an old master.
"Mad Max: Fury Road" opens in theaters on Friday, May 15.
Watch the trailer below: