A film that deals in scorched earth landscapes and scorched retina viewers, this film - large parts of which were shot in the Namibian desert - must have been hell to make, but the result is gleefully unhinged, visually stunning and utterly relentlessly thrilling. Tom Hardy may have played the lead role, but the film belongs to Charlize Theron's blistering intensity, director George Miller's crazed vision and every single technical expert who worked on it. A piece of action cinema that you won't have the seen the like of before.

I have to say that I tried really hard to like this. But my old fashioned "There needs to be a story and interesting characters" mode took over. It took about fifteen minutes to figure out who was who. Apparently, the guy with the death mask and the tubes was seen as a god, that there was some religious following. Could be interesting, I guess. But what follows is one chase after another with every conceivable vehicle that some guy could dream up. There were porcupine cars. Monster trucks. Guys on poles dropping into vehicles. There was no logic presented as to why one vehicle would have a spear thing thrown at it and explode while others were hit with heavy artillery and seemed to move on just fine. Then we have Mad Max who is a captive with a mask that looks like a 1955 Oldsmobile grill. He is put on the front of a vehicle as all this combat goes on. Unfortunately, he has absolutely no personality whatsoever. There was never any suspense in this film because the place they were trying to get to was never really in our mind's eye. Then there's the short crop haired female which seems to be a standard these days. Make her look masculine and she becomes more formidable. Anyway, it is spectacular to look at but when it was over I felt no emotion or satisfaction at all.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD is the finest piece of pure action spectacle that I've watched since THE RAID 2 and JOHN WICK. It feels like the MAD MAX film that George Miller always wanted to make, and in many ways it's a virtual remake of MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR, except with a grossly inflated budget and CGI effects used to enhance rather than dominate. Now, I love THE ROAD WARRIOR and always will, but MAD MAX: FURY ROAD truly is an action film for our times.

I know that some will hate it; the story here is action and action alone and there's little else to get in the way. It's one long chase film and the amazing thing is how they manage to sustain the momentum for a good two hours. Exemplary cinematography and quite wonderful direction is what makes this work. With bad direction it would have been a real chore to sit through, but instead we get tons of suspense, great fight scenes, and incredible spectacle. This is the kind of film you watch to see stuff that's never been done before.

Tom Hardy feels like an obvious fit for the role and brings some working class style charisma to the part. As many have commented, Max is often a supporting player in his own film, but Charlize Theron as the real lead is excellent too, so that's not important. Even Nicholas Hoult in support is fantastic. I loved the way that the bad guy is played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who was the villain in the first MAD MAX all those years ago. Overall, though, this is a film not about the people, but the Namibian desert landscapes, the modded vehicles, the speed, the violence, the overall thrill of the chase. And it's pretty much my idea of a perfect film.