Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Josh Helman, Nathan Jones, Zoë Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, John Howard, Richard Carter, Angus Sampson, Megan Gale, Melissa Jaffer, Coco Jack Gillies.

There are times when a long chase sequence is played out in front of a cinema audience and the heart just groans under the pressure of being subjected to the Director’s whim and fancy. It can be viewed upon as just being delivered as if the Director has no other idea of what to place into the film’s story line than have several cars or vehicles race round for a couple of hours with no discernible universal truth being explored. It is basically a testosterone fight but with petrol pumping through the heart instead of blood; it’s been done so many times that it has almost become a pastiche of itself.

Then there is Mad Max, or specifically Mad Max: Fury Road, a film which takes the idea of a car chase and magnifies to the point where adrenaline is not so much coursing through the veins, as replacing every single blood vessel and then kick starting it with the spark from an ignition plug, every possible explosion, every conceivable action undertaken and every stunt given time on screen is one in which rage flows and takes its toll upon the senses.

Coming 30 years after the last Mad Max film, Beyond the Thunderdome, Time it seems has not just been kind to the franchise but has given it such an injection of possibilities that the film’s star, Tom Hardy really looks as though he has outgunned Mel Gibson in every way as the former policeman trapped in a world destroyed by humanity’s greed and reliance on the black gold. Time has moved on, the imagination stretched beyond the parameters set out by the limitations of 1980s cinema and with two lead characters in Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron who really ramp up the high-octane feel and the despair found in a future that we are only one small step away from descending into.

With Nicholas Hoult giving a fine supporting performance as one of the war boys and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley adding a certain decorum in the madness, the idea of the chase is not just a Director’s way of filling out a film, it is the film, long, explosive and utterly compelling, the way all road films should be viewed.

The descent into madness is long and winding path, yet it can also bring out the very best in action films. Audiences would be wise not to miss this terrific fourth instalment.

Ian D. Hall