Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

 The title is a great lead in to the intense pace and crazily creative action that makes up this movie. As the fourth movie in the series, it totally delivers on one upping the previous incarnations. That is no small feat considering the utter madness of its 1985 predecessor Max Max Beyond Thunderdome. The filmmaker's ideas about the Mad Max saga did not fade in the 30 years between the former and Fury Road. They must have taken note of every fever dream they had had in the intervening decades and distilled them into their purest form of lunacy.

Seemingly every scene is filled with an intensifying string of acrobatically suicidal acts in a world where humans lives are cheap and 'War Boys' are happy to die in service to their ruler, Immortan Joe. The whitewashed War Boys believe Joe can grant them access to Valhalla and then be born again. While this all may seem like hyperbole, early in the movie considerable attention and importance is given to the blinded, heavy metal guitarist, suspended by bungee cords, bouncing in front of a wall of amplified concert speakers, who's heralding the utter doom and menace of the phalanx of 'guzzeline' fueled, nitro boosted, muscle motored, cavalcade that accompanies them. Also, his guitar spews fire. And he's only wearing red long johns. Absolutely mad in the most convincing way.

 The world created here is full of artistic detail that is faithful to the timbre of the rest of the film. The wild and inventive decoration, costumes, makeup, and props would make Jodorosky proud. Every nook and cranny of this space has been carefully crafted which lends to the sense that this over the top display is somehow grounded in a reality that has rules, consistent methodologies, and functions, in many ways, like our everyday environs.

 Entire societies arise around the industries that fulfil the priorities of this tortured and desolate culture. The Bullet Farm and Gas Town specialize in their respective areas and are controlled by similarly grotesque and cruel masters, The Bullet Farmer and The People Eater. And Immortan's, The Citadel is built around a tall mesa that contains a vast well of fresh water in the middle of this arid wasteland.

 The pains taken to give this scenario rules and social mechanisms inspire one to contemplate about our own societies and the principles that we live by. How is our individuality thwarted and washed away in the throng of the crowd? How does our humanity get crippled by compromises made in the name of industry, corrupt leaders, and their concurring belief systems?

 In reaction, heroes emerge, a quest begins, much like a very grim fairy tale, though the resolution is far from anyone living happily ever after.