It's been 30 years since the last Mad Max movie, in that time George Miller has primarily focused on smash hit films about pigs and penguins - and their less well received sequels - but he returns to his petrolhead roots for this sequel/reboot/whatever.


It's not necessary to have seen any of the previous Mad Max films, with bullet-point economy of narrative we're plunged into this post-apocalypse and given all the scraps of information we need to follow along, and, much like the beleagured and bedraggled Max (Tom Hardy) we're going to be playing a fair bit of catch-up along the way.


We meet Max overlooking the desert wasteland he calls home, ambushed by a team of War Boys, he's taken to the Citadel where - after a failed escape - he becomes a blood-bank for Nux (Nichols Hoult), a sickly cadet desperate to prove his worth, die gloriously and ascend to the promise of Valhalla.


The leader that these troops look up to with such reverence is Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), a grotesque clad in translucent body armour, his demonic eyes emphasized by the breathing apparatus stuffed down his maw.


Joe presides over the desperate, diseased unfortunates of the Citadel, doling out water to retain their loyalty and offering promises of a wondrous afterlife for those willing to sacrifice themselves to his cause. More than that he keeps a harem of "breeders" with which he hopes to sire an unspoiled heir.


Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) drives Joe's War-Rig, a heavily armoured tanker truck, that on this day is making a routine run. Though suddenly Furiosa makes an "unplanned" detour, and it soon transpires that she's making a break for it, having smuggled out the five women Joe had imprisoned to be his breeding stock.


Suddenly the War Boys are out in force, an episode of Wacky Races designed by Hieronymus Bosch, pursuing Furiosa across the desert and beyond. Max finds himself brought along for the ride, and later allies himself alongside Furiosa in a desperate scrabble for their lives.


More than that, in amongst the carnage, the film tangles some tantilising questions and accusations at the state (and fate) of the world as we know it. Apathy and destruction vie against hope, with its question marks summarised into the oft-repeated question/statement; "Who killed the world?"


It's a film that doesn't need to dwell, there's no time, and it yearns for repeat viewings to savour every visual detail but also pick up on the purely visceral ways in which characters change and grow over the course of the film. Whilst the dialogue is sparse, here is a film that knows a picture is worth much more, and it's worth even more when accompanied by fervent percussion, wailing guitars, balletic displays of heart-stopping stuntwork, glorious fireballs filmed with a nature documentarian's eye for the beauty in the grotesque.


Superficially Mad Max: Fury Road is a spectacular. It's an ever increasing carnival of invention and wonder, with each new leg of the chase throwing imaginative new twists into the mix, beginning with a howling thunderstorm and climaxing in one last, near-joyous, edge-of-your-seat finale.


For a film that - on paper - seems linear and straight-forward, its full of delightful surprises, unexpected turns and subverted expectations. It's a puddle-shallow action thrill ride with unexpected depth beneath the murky waters. It's a triumph of production design, stunt work, cinematography, editing, cinema in general. It's an absolute delight in the most ridiculous, joyous way imaginable.

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