Mad Max: Fury Road

Tom Hardy is a perfectly good choice to play George Miller’s heroically desperate antihero Mad Max, but the real star of this fourth installment of the franchise is the desperate and gallant Furiosa (Charlize Theron), who is trying to rescue the pregnant, bikini-clad trophy wives of the grotesquely masked archvillain Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). And Furiosa and at least a couple of the brides are fully capable of defending themselves, as are the wizened lady bikers who turn up late in the action. The film’s macho feminism is dramatized via the brief, fugitive partnership of Furiosa and Max. As such, it stands as the latest of the thematic crosscurrents that mark the continuing evolution of the series’ testosterone-fueled fantasies. Max plays a key role in the lady warriors’ survival, but he must walk away from the community he has helped preserve. That said, Fury Road is every bit as brutal and rambunctious as its predecessors. While it uses more CGI than some early reviews might lead you to believe, it has fierce, muscular intensity to its stunt-heavy action sequences, and a strikingly visceral sense of human flesh in its portraiture. Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated R