2. Mad Max: Fury Road – Christopher Diggins
What more is there to say that hasn’t already been said? In a year filled with terrible reboots, disappointing sequels, and assorted other big budget disasters, a 70 year old man who’d spent the last 20 years directing dramas and children’s movies swept in and put everyone else to shame. Mad Max: Fury Road is everything an action movie should be: kinetic, propulsive, and non-stop fun. Filled to the brim with practical effects and real stunts, backed up by just the right touch of CGI, and splayed across the backdrop of a vibrant and gorgeous wasteland, Mad Max is a visual masterpiece, a movie where every shot is as beautiful as it is engrossing.
Perhaps even more amazingly, Mad Max is a movie that has perfected its brand of writing. A masterclass in visual storytelling, every single scene tells us something vital about this world or its characters without ever having to weigh down its bombastic action with unnecessary words. But while it may be short on dialogue, it’s rich in subtext. Here’s a post-apocalyptic tale that rejects rugged individualism for community and compassion, one that allows Imperator Furiosa (played brilliantly by Charlize Theron) rather than Max himself (an equally flawless Tom Hardy) to lead the charge against the personified forces of old world oppression. To anyone that bemoans the state of the Hollywood blockbuster, I say that if the system can somehow allow an impossible dream like Mad Max to exist, then hope is not yet a mistake.
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