The sublime awesomeness of Mad Max

I have always been aware of the Mel  Gibson Mad Max movies, but I have never seen them. Nevertheless, tiny bits and pieces of trivia keep crossing my sights. For instance, I was aware through, of all things, a letter to the editor of an Indian newspaper, possibly The Statesman, that an Indian association of Mad Max aficionados wanted the national TV channel to show all the films, Bear in mind, that we are talking early nineties India, before the Internet and just barely after the advent of cable TV. So this was a group of fans who got together via snail-mail?? Fanatics indeed!

Then my friends are Cracked.com  pointed out that Lord Humungous from Mad Max 2 seemed to have a startlingly elaborate backstory for a movie character who didn't appear to need one. See, stuff like this - I tend to find interesting. Mostly because cinematic world-building is fascinating stuff. Some of it can be the elaborate, perpetually rain drizzled gloom-verse that Deckerd inhabits in Blade Runner. Sometimes it can be the bright, neon-lit sensory overload that Leeloo and mooltipass call home. And sometimes, it can be the title sequence of Seven. Yes, go look it up. But the thing is, is something like this world -building always intentional or is it just a gofer and an intern gone wild? That is, not part of the script, totally divorced from the main plot? Who knows?

And finally, we get to the car. A Ford XB Falcon Coupe. Aussie cars apparently like having nostrils(such as the Holden Commodore, aka the Pontiac G8). We can get behind that. My other friends at Jalopnik have had a lot to say about the vehicles in the entire Mad Max series. But all of that aside. The reasons you should go see Mad Max Fury Road are many:

• The loving care, and the "throw-the-pills-into-the-slipstream" insanity with which the cars have been built.
• The gleeful CGI-less abandon with which they have been thrown together, blown apart, tossed into the sky and generally mistreated.
• The world building. The detail. The costumes. The set.
• Tom Hardy is adequate. 
• Nicky Hoult is bloody amazing in his hyper-oxygenated vim. At the risk of meme-like repetition, "a lovely day, indeed"
• Theron, C. This immensely talented lady is the furiously beating heart and tortured soul of the film. Her character arc does not evolve, but it doesn't need to. She is the anchor on which this 'verse revolves. She seeks redemption, sublimely unaware that she is redemption herself. She is Mother to all other mothers, guardian and protector to the weak, the naive and the foolish - because even they have a place and deserve to be saved from themselves.