Like one critic said “Believe the hype it will melt your face off”. 36 years after the original Mel Gibson epic comes Mad Max: Fury Road both directed by the same genius George Miller (Can you imagine in the interim he made adorable kids movies – Babe and Happy Feet…. This is certainly not a kid’s movie, though!!) . Call it a remake, reboot or a refuel, this movie is a perfectly orchestrated symphony of violence, beauty and insanity at the same time! Consider a T20 match with sixes hit in 18 of the 20 overs – it just doesn’t slow down to let the audience catch its breath. The vehicles are in constant motion for maybe 100+ of the 120 minutes running time.

The story is simple. A perpetual war for fuel will turn a sandy region of the world into a wasteland crawling with barbarous death cultists in souped-up stock cars. (Incidentally most of the filming was done in Namibia). In our ruined future, the Wasteland is run by a grotesque, misshapen tyrant called King Immortan Joe. Max, a prisoner finds himself swept along on a mission of vengeance and recovery.

And so commences a two-hour death race, enlivened with such impressive stunt work it’s seriously hard to believe that dozens of people weren’t killed getting it all down on film. There’s barely any reliance on CGI and amazingly, Miller paces the almost nonstop action so that it’s neither tiresome nor hard to follow. No shaky-cam here; we see the spectacular stunts and choreographed fights in full clarity.

Buried within the sand and the smoke is a surprising amount of heart as well. It is universally understandable even without subtitles for someone who doesn’t speak English – its that clear!

Buckle up for the adrenaline rush because this is the fastest and most furious movie I have ever seen (Apologies to the FnF series).

This is not a movie its an event so the ticket price is immaterial – go watch it on the biggest screen possible (and maybe it will help rid the disappointment of having watched “Bombay Velvet”)…

SAUMIL BHANSHALI