The road warrior returns to the wasteland in his latest film “Mad Max: Fury Road,” an Australian post-apocalyptic action film that is blowing audiences away. The film brings back the gas-guzzling franchise with a vengeance in its fourth installment after years of delay. The film is the very embodiment of high-octane, with stunning visual effects, beyond exceptional sound score, actors that bring an amazing level of depth and personality in the characters they portray, and themes that highlight the capacity humans have for either justice or depravity in a world devoid of order.

The movie takes place 45 years after mass nuclear fallout, with societies worshiping car gods and desert marauders fighting to the death in nitro-boosted war-machines. “Mad” Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) is a wandering warrior traversing alone in the post-fallout desert of Australia; that is, until he is captured by aforementioned marauders to be used as a living blood bag for cancer ridden “war-boys”. These war boys take Max back Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), their dictator/cult leader that subjugates his people by hoarding what’s left of natural resources. The situation seems bleak until Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) high-jacks one of Immortan’s war tankers in an attempt to escape the warlord’s cult society and arrive at the mythical “green place,” providing Max with a (very slight) chance to escape with his life.

The film is a must see for anyone (ideally over 17) that craves action, adventure, and quality in a film franchise decades in the making.

My rating 10/10