Stop Getting Bond Wrong! Your week in film (Feb 22-28)

Daniel Craig is back as Bond... perhaps for the final time

TV, Radio, DVD, Blu-ray, VOD and cinema picks for the next seven days...

MONDAY 22nd: If Spectre (Blu-ray, DVD and VOD) turns out to be Daniel Craig's last film as James Bond, it will be a shame, because this 24th installment of the 007 franchise is more Quantum Of Solace than Skyfall. As you'd expect, there are a couple of spectacular action scenes (the opening sequence in Mexico is a cracker), while bad-guy Christoph Waltz and love interest Léa Seydoux bring a genuine touch of class to proceedings. But Monica Bellucci is wasted and some scenes either fall flat or make no sense whatsoever. Still, even below-par Bond is always worth a look. Despite its huge debt to When Harry Met Sally, I really enjoyed edgy(ish) rom-com Sleeping With Other People (DVD and VOD), mainly because the script is sharp and Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis are such likeable leads. TV-wise, there's Pacino and De Niro in limp cop thriller Righteous Kill (22:55, Channel 5), classic Steve Martin comedy The Jerk (01:05, ITV4), and intense Xavier Dolan drama I Killed My Mother (01:45, Film4).

Spectre has its moments but is no Skyfall (trailer)

Nobody Does it better: Alan Partridge re-enacts the
intro to The Spy Who Loved Me 

TUESDAY 23rd: It's been 20 years since Trainspotting (22:45, Film4) opened in British cinemas, so kudos to Film4 for marking that anniversary with a showing of the Danny Boyle-directed movie on the exact same day as its original release. Two decades on, the adaptation of Irvine Welsh's cult novel about a gang of heroin addicts in Edinburgh holds up well with a parade of iconic scenes and memorable characters, many of the cast (Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller) turning in performances they've since struggled to top. With a sequel on its way from Boyle, and Welsh returning to the Trainspotting well more and more (Skagboys, The Blade Artist), I suspect we'll be seeing the likes of Begbie, Sick Boy and Renton on the big screen for a long time yet.

Trainspotting is 20 years old this week (trailer)

WEDNESDAY 24th: A holidaying family are terrorised and tortured by two intruders in Michael Haneke's psychological thriller Funny Games (Sky Arts, 22:00). This isn't some run-of-the-mill 'yuppies in peril' movie, though, as the Austrian director cleverly turns the brutality he depicts back on his audience to explore their/our own attraction to and fascination with screen violence. From 1997, this is the original version rather than the inferior US remake, which Haneke also directed. Guardian movie critic Peter Bradshaw joins Claudia Winkleman and Danny Leigh to review the week's new releases on Film 2016 (23:15, BBC1), including Secret In Their Eyes starring Julia Roberts, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Nicole Kidman (presumably on a break from playing a meerkat's girlfriend in those disturbing TV ads).

Funny Games cleverly tackles our fascination
with screen violence (trailer)

THURSDAY 25th: Guillermo Del Toro's Hellboy (22:40, Film4) is a thoroughly enjoyable adaptation of the graphic novel series with Ron Perlman perfectly cast as the titular demon-turned-hero. If you were compiling a list of the best vampire movies of all time you'd probably stick Tomas Alfredson's Let The Right One In (01:00, Film4) somewhere near the top of it. The Swedish film - an adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist's original novel - has all the horror and violence you'd expect but is also a surprisingly soulful and tender tale of first love and lost innocence. Terrific.

Let The Right One In: Tender, soulful, brutal (trailer)

FRIDAY 26th: Mad Max: Fury Road (15:30 and 20:00, Sky Movies Premiere) might just be the finest action film ever made, although you have to feel a bit sorry for Tom Hardy. His debut as road warrior Max Rockatansky is solid enough but this movie belongs to one-armed warrior woman Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and the sheer avalanche of crazy ideas and outrageous stunts that director George Miller and his co-conspirators bring to the party. Relentlessly imaginative, thrill-a-minute stuff. Ethan and Joel Coen talk about their new movie, Hail, Caesar!, on Kermode and Mayo's Film Review (14:00, Radio 5 Live). Cinema-wise, it's a profoundly underwhelming week. If I can muster the energy, I'll see Sacha Baron Cohen's new comedy Grimsby, although its chances of being anywhere near as good as Borat or Bruno are slim.

Mad Max: Fury Road - an avalanche of crazy ideas
and outrageous stunts (trailer)

SATURDAY 27th: Amy (More4, 21:00) is Asif Kapadia's documentary chronicling the short life and tragic death at 27 of British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse. The Senna director uses archive footage and the voices of friends, family and collaborators to really get under the skin of his subject, an addict who cut a thoroughly forlorn figure towards the end of her life. This is not only a powerful reminder of Winehouse's enormous talent but a film that does a sterling job of redeeming her public image too. 

Amy provides a reminder of the late singer's
enormous talent (trailer)

SUNDAY 28th: Chris Rock is your host for the 88th Academy Awards (01:30, Sky Movies Oscars). I've deliberately avoided mentioning the Oscars on here this year as the entire enterprise grows ever sillier and more sordid. There might be some great films and actors nominated but, let's face it, the whole thing is so cosy, unimaginative and conservative that truly transgressive, challenging and left-field pictures rarely get a look in. And that's before you even get to the scandalous row over diversity. Elsewhere, there's Star Wars: The Force Awakens' very own John Boyega in Attack The Block (23:35, Film4), while Darren Aronofsky's ambitious but bonkers Noah hits Netflix.

Host Seth Macfarlane oozes class at the Oscars in 2013.

The last five films I've seen, from best to worst...

1. Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) The New Wave maestro at the top of his game: provocative, outrageous and bloody funny.

2. The Survivalist (Stephen Fingleton, 2015) Bleak but gripping British post-apocalypse drama that works wonders on a low budget. 

3. Goosebumps (Rob Letterman, 2015) Monsters from the famous children's books go on the rampage in an all-action adventure that might have benefited from a bit more Gremlins-style anarchy.

4. Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz, 2009) Solondz's 'spiritual sequel' to 1998's Happiness never hits the hilariously transgressive heights of the original film.

5. The Green Inferno (Eli Roth, 2013) Being devoured by cannibals would probably be more fun than sitting through this again.  

The Survivalist is in cinemas and on-demand now (trailer)

UK box office top 10
1. Deadpool R
2. Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Road Chip
3. Zoolander 2
4. Dad's Army
5. Goosebumps R
6. The Revenant R
7. Dirty Grandpa
8. Spotlight R
9. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
10. Pride And Prejudice And Zombies

R = Recommended

My 30 favourite films of 2015 (part three #10-1)

Of all the new films I saw in 2015 - 187 at the last count - these were the 10 I loved most...

10. Brooklyn 
(director: John Crowley UK release date: November 6)

Beautifully written and acted adaptation of Colm Tóibín's 1950s-set novel. Ellis (Saoirse Ronan) is a young immigrant relocating from her quiet Irish village to the hustle and bustle of the titular New York borough. There, she meets and falls for an easygoing Italian plumber but is soon recalled on urgent family business. Back on home soil, Ellis's new life, priorities and future are all suddenly thrown up into the air, especially when a potential new suitor makes himself known. She faces a huge choice - which way will she leap? The plot is simplicity itself but the themes and emotions are big. Julie Walters and Jim Broadbent are both superb in small supporting roles but this is Ronan's film and if she doesn't grab an Oscar nomination I will eat an entire hat shop. 

9. Girlhood

(Director: Celine Sciamma UK release date: May 8)

Excellent French-language drama set in and around a tough Parisian estate and focusing on the members of a black girl gang. Sciamma – a white woman – has been criticised in some quarters for portraying black characters and their lives negatively but this is as much about the limited choices and pressures faced by young women as it is a film attempting to chronicle the black or immigrant experience in France. Besides, at no point does Girlhood seek to denigrate its main characters or their choices. In fact, Karidja Touré's Marieme is an empowering, inspiring creation; a strong, determined and resourceful young woman who simply refuses to buckle under the weight of a difficult life. 

8. Carol 

(director: Todd Haynes UK release date: November 27) 

A film so classy and graceful it makes Breakfast At Tiffany's look like The Toxic Avenger, Todd Haynes' adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel The Price Of Salt is set in 1950s New York and tells the story of a forbidden love affair between unhappy socialite Cate Blanchett (the titular Carol) and Rooney Mara's Therese, a department-store clerk with dreams of being a photographer. Like Brooklyn, the plot is minimal and Haynes takes his time exploring his main characters' lives, the evolution of their feelings for each other and how that impacts upon their other relationships (Carol is married to Kyle Chandler's boorish drunk Harge). The cast is as impressive as any I saw all year, with Blanchett even more magnetic than usual and Sarah Paulson excellent in a supporting role. Haynes once again proves himself a consummate storyteller and an absolute demon when it comes to period detail. 

7. Phoenix

(director: Christian Petzold UK release date: May 8)
Quietly devastating German noir dealing with the return of Auschwitz survivor Nelly Lenz (Nina Hoss) to Berlin after WWII. Sporting a new face following reconstructive surgery, she tracks down husband Johnny who, failing to recognise her, instead recruits Nelly into an elaborate plot to claim his 'dead' wife's inheritance. It would be easy to dismiss Phoenix as little more than a clever spin on Hitchcock's Vertigo and denounce the implausibility of its plotting. But the film is so much more than that, effortlessly juggling big themes of rebirth, identity, guilt and betrayal while exploring the experience of Holocaust survivors. Hoss, in her sixth collaboration with director Petzold, is quite superb, and the ending will leave you in bits.

6. Mistress America 

(director: Noah Baumbach UK release date: August 14) 

The Frances Ha team of Noah Baumbach (co-writer/director) and Greta Gerwig (co-writer/star) reunite for a witty comedy that perfectly balances screwball elements with a more melancholic edge speaking to failure and betrayal. Lola Kirke (who you may remember from Gone Girl) is Tracy, a lonely college fresher taken in by her soon-to-be stepsister, Brooke (Gerwig). The older woman is impetuous, adventurous and appears to have the world at her feet. But it doesn't take Tracy long before she realises Brooke's schemes for success and world domination are little more than pipe dreams and that she is going nowhere fast. Woody Allen at something approaching his best is evoked in its rat-a-tat dialogue, spiky, not always likeable, characters and moments of pure, laugh-out-loud farce.

5. The Look Of Silence 
(Director: Joshua Oppenheimer UK release date: June 12)
Joshua Oppenheimer's bravura follow-up to The Act of Killing, his 2013 film about the 1965 Indonesian genocide of alleged communists. The Look Of Silence is a smaller, more personal story of one of the families who lost a loved one during the purge. The murdered man's brother - a gentle but determined optometrist named Adi - confronts his sibling's killers (many of whom are celebrated as heroes and hold positions of power) in a number of truly jaw-dropping scenes. My favourite documentary in a year packed with some very good ones.

4. The Dance Of Reality 

(director: Alejandro Jodorowsky UK release date: August 21) 

Veteran filmmaker Jodorowsky’s sort-of-autobiographical film, set in the small Chilean coastal town where the 86-year-old endured a difficult childhood, is peculiar, challenging and utterly bonkers. Counter-intuitively, it might just be his most accessible work to date. The movie - his first in 23 years - is full of surreal imagery, absurdist digressions, playful humour and several genuinely shocking moments (a golden shower, the killing of a donkey and genital torture, if you’re wondering), but at its core is really the story of Jodorowsky’s fraught relationship with his Stalinist dad (here played by Brontis, the director’s real-life son). It owes more than a little something to Federico Fellini (especially the Italian director's 8½ and Amarcord) but proves, that even pushing 90, the Chilean maestro is still capable of producing work every bit as intriguing, eccentric and transgressive as El Topo and Santa Sangre. 

3. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night 

(Director: Ana Lily Amirpour UK release date: May 22)

Utterly beguiling ‘Iranian vampire western’ that quickly transcends its influences to deliver something quite unique. Set in Bad City, a windblown, oddly-deserted industrial town somewhere in Iran (Taft, California in reality), this most peculiar of love stories centres on The Girl (Sheila Vand), a lonely, chador-clad blood-sucker who prowls the streets looking for wrongs to right and evil men to punish. One such night-time patrol brings her into contact with troubled Arash (Arash Marandi) – one part James Dean, one part major doofus – and they enjoy an immediate mutual attraction. Shot in gorgeous, high-contrast black and white with cinematographer Lyle Vincent, Amirpour's full-length debut never loses sight of its sinister horror edge despite also being playful, romantic and effortlessly cool. Superb soundtrack too.

2. Mad Max: Fury Road 

(Director: George Miller UK release date: May 15)

Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy in for Mel Gibson) returns to the post-apocalyptic Aussie badlands in a movie for which the term high-octane was surely invented. On the run from the tyrannical Immortan Joe and his motorcade of mutant crazies, Max teams up with Charlize Theron’s badass Imperator Furiosa (pictured, top of page) for one of the most exciting - and prolonged - chase sequences in movie history. At times, it's like the Marquis de Sade directing Wacky Races, at others surprisingly political, taking aim at patriarchy, climate change, and the one per cent. Hardy's debut as Max is solid enough but this film belongs to one-armed warrior woman Furiosa and the sheer avalanche of crazy ideas, images and stunts that Miller and his co-conspirators bring to the party. The finest action film ever made? It might just be.

1. The New Girlfriend 

(director: François Ozon UK release date: May 22) 

Loosely adapted from Ruth Rendell's bleak short story of the same name, The New Girlfriend is a strange but heady brew of farcical comedy and odd-couple romance that nevertheless contains a tiny sliver of thriller-ish ice at its heart. Ozon's film tells the story of David (Romain Duris) who, after the death of his wife, Laura, starts dressing as a woman, initially so his baby daughter can have a 'mother' but soon simply because he enjoys it. The only person who shares his secret is Claire (Anaïs Demoustier), poor dead Laura's married best friend who was secretly in love with her. 

Initially repelled by David's revelation, Claire tries to discourage his burgeoning transvestism but it isn't long before she starts to come to terms with her own sexuality and falls for his feminine alter-ego, Virginia. On a slightly sinister note, it becomes clear Claire is attracted to the part of David/Virginia that reminds her of Laura and is keen to, in effect, 'recreate' the dead woman using her new beau as a template. In fact, a hint of what can only be called 'necrophilia' informs the entire affair. Not only is Claire in love with Laura but we see David in the morgue dressing his naked wife in her wedding gown prior to her funeral. It's a scene that manages to be titillating and chilling at the same time, and The New Girlfriend is full of such contrasting moments, none more so than in its final shot.

There are times when the film's tone is uneven and the humour just a little too broad, while Ozon leaves some fairly important questions hanging (when David speaks of "living as a woman" does he mean as a transvestite or is he keen to fully transition?). So why is this rather than, say, Fury Road, my favourite film of the year? Well, because I love its ambition and its cheek and its desire to tackle a tricky subject head on and sod the consequences. I admire the fact that French auteur Ozon (Potiche, Swimming Pool) has given us a mature, challenging and utterly charming exploration of sexual and gender fluidity in the form of a film that is occasionally as daft as a brush and camp as Christmas. I also love that its leads are both brilliant. 

Duris (The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Populaire) is a hugely versatile actor and his turn here as a man finally able to throw off the shackles and be who he wants to be is sympathetic and believable. He's grieving and depressed, yes, but all of that soon gives way to relief and acceptance and he sells that shift perfectly. Demoustier is French cinema's best kept secret. She is one of those actors who elevates everything she is in by at least 10 per cent and that is certainly true here. As Claire, she's a beautiful ball of confusion and guilt - you can see every conflicted emotion etched across her face. 

Rendell died in May last year and, although Ozon excises her original story's nasty little twist, I'd like to think she'd approve of the complex and fascinatingly flawed film he has crafted from her source material.

Home Comforts: The best in TV, VOD, DVD and Blu-ray (Monday October 5 - Sunday October 11)

12 great films on TV, DVD, Blu-ray and VOD to see this week...

1. Mad Max: Fury Road 

(various streaming services, plus DVD/Blu-ray)

Tom Hardy (pictured above) takes over from Mel Gibson as Max in a film I described upon its cinema release as "Wacky Races reimagined by the Marquis de Sade". Charlize Theron steals the movie as one-armed warrior woman Imperator Furiosa. See review here

2. White God 

(Netflix UK, from today)

Hungarian film chronicling a violent uprising of mistreated stray dogs in Budapest. Kornél Mundruczó's movie is a powerful, moving and visceral piece of work; part apocalyptic horror, part political allegory, and one of the best things I've seen all year. See review here

3. What We Do in the Shadows 

(Netflix UK, from Saturday)

Very funny vampire mockumentary starring Flight Of The Conchords' Jemaine Clement. Far from the exotic worlds of Twilight or Dracula, these vamps spend their time bickering over household chores and feuding with local werewolves.

4. Blue Jasmine 

(Amazon Prime, from Sunday)

When her pampered life comes crashing down around her ears, Cate Blanchett's New York socialite is forced to move to San Francisco to live with her struggling sister. Blanchett fully deserved her best actress Oscar but Woody Allen's spiky comedy-drama wouldn't be as effective without its bravura supporting cast (Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins, Peter Sarsgaard).

5. 8½

(08:00, Tuesday, Sky Arts)

Federico Fellini's autobiographical Oscar winner follows the trials and tribulations of Guido (Marcello Mastroianni), a stressed-out film director taking refuge in memories and fantasies as work on his new movie stalls. One of European cinema's finest moments.

6. The Big Lebowski 

(23:55, Thursday, ITV4)

Jeff Bridges is 'The Dude' in the Coen Brothers' razor-sharp and exhaustively quoted ("That rug really tied the room together") mistaken-identity comedy. An impressive cast also includes John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Turturro. Trailer below

7. Wall Street 

(01:30, Wednesday, Channel 4)

Michael Douglas is superb as Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's never-more-relevant dissection of capitalism gone rogue. Charlie Sheen plays the ambitious young stockbroker who does a deal with the devil.

8. Taxi Driver 

(23:15, Thursday, Film4)

Consider the kind of films Robert De Niro stars in these days (Last Vegas, The Intern) and weep. This, director Martin Scorsese's second movie with the actor after Mean Streets, remains a spectacularly dark, uncompromising piece of work. 

9. The Hard Way 

(DVD and Blu-ray)

Likeable action comedy in which James Woods' badass New York cop is removed from a serial killer case to babysit a spoiled Hollywood actor (Michael J Fox) as he researches a role in a movie. Trailer below

10. Dog Day Afternoon 

(Sky Movies Select, 19:50, Thursday)

Al Pacino in one of his best performances as a would-be bank robber with a rather unusual reason for planning a heist. Like De Niro, it would be great to see Pacino take on something this challenging again.

11. School For Scoundrels 

(DVD and Blu-ray)

Tweedy but amusing British comedy from 1960 starring Ian Carmichael, Terry Thomas and Alastair Sim. Carmichael enrolls at the College of Lifemanship hoping to learn how to get one over a romantic rival (Thomas on top caddish form). Clip below

12. John Carpenter's Vampires 

(21:00, SyFy, Friday)

More James Woods - this time he's the leader of a band of vampire hunters on a quest to retrieve an ancient relic that would give bloodsuckers the ability to walk in daylight. Not one of Carpenter's best but definitely worth a look.

And one to avoid...

The Interview 

(20:00, tonight-Thursday, Sky Movies Premiere)

Spectacularly terrible "comedy" in which TV presenter James Franco and his producer Seth Rogen are recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. So unfunny it makes Get Hard look like Annie Hall. 

Please note: Films starting after midnight are always considered part of the previous day's schedule, e.g. Wall Street begins at 01:30 - technically Thursday morning - but is still part of Wednesday's listings. All times in 24-hour clock.

My top 20 movies of the year... so far (part #1)

Blimey, those six months just sped by, didn't they? And with them lots of very, very good films. I don't know whether we've had a stone-cold classic yet but with the likes of Todd Haynes' Carol, Michael Fassbender starring in Macbeth, and Crimson Peak from Guillermo del Toro scheduled for later in the year, there's still plenty to look forward to in 2015. Of all the films I've seen there is only one I can honestly say I hated – American Sniper – but that was more about its lousy politics than Clint Eastwood's skill as a director or the merits of Bradley Cooper as an actor. 

Anyway, the rules here are simple: all films under consideration had to have had a UK cinema release between January 1 and June 30 2015 (to prevent moans of 'But surely that was out last year', I've even included each film's official UK release date, courtesy of launchingfilms.com). No straight to Netflix/Amazon Prime or straight to DVD/Blu-ray movies were considered (sorry, Starry Eyes). 

Not being a professional critic, there are dozens of films I've yet to catch up on that have been released in the last six months (The Falling, White God, and Slow West to name but three) but of those I've seen – 59 as of this morning – these will be my 20 21 favourites. Let's start with numbers 20-11, shall we?

=20. Selma
(Director: Ava DuVernay UK release date: February 6)
The fact David Oyelowo wasn't nominated for an Oscar for his astonishing portrayal of Martin Luther King still sticks in the craw. The rest of this civil rights drama doesn't quite hit the heights of the British actor's performance but is powerful, heartfelt stuff nevertheless.

=20. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
(Director: Roy Andersson UK release date: April 24)
Bizarre comedy following the antics of two dour salesmen as they attempt to flog a range of hopeless novelty items. There isn't a coherent plot as such, just a string of loosely connected sketches each commenting on some aspect of human existence. Gloriously odd.

19. Blind
(Director: Eskil Vogt UK release date: March 27)
Fantasy and reality merge in this extraordinary Swedish film from a first-time writer/director about a young blind woman struggling to come to terms with isolation and paranoia. Boasts a great central performance from Ellen Dorrit Petersen (below)

18. Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
(Director: David Zellner UK release date: February 20)
Terrific but elliptical drama charting a young Japanese woman’s quest to find the briefcase full of cash buried by Steve Buscemi’s character in the movie Fargo. Is the titular Kumiko mentally ill or merely so alienated from modern life that taking refuge in fantasy is her only option? 

17. Inherent Vice
(Director: Paul Thomas Anderson UK release date: January 30)
Vague and sprawling, this adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s similarly opaque novel features Joaquin Phoenix at the top of his game. Perhaps a difficult film to truly love but it is nevertheless enormous fun.

16. Jauja
(Director: Lisandro Alonso UK release date: April 10)
A weird and woozy ‘western’ set in the wilds of 19th Century Patagonia and starring Viggo Mortensen (below) as a Danish engineer on a quest to find his missing daughter. I’d be surprised if I saw a more visually stunning movie all year.

15. Wild
(Director: Jean-Marc Vallée UK release date: January 16)
Reese Witherspoon is terrific as an emotionally shattered young woman hiking a thousand miles up America's west coast in a bid to come to terms with her mother's death and the downward spiral it has plunged her into.

14. Foxcatcher
(Director: Bennett Miller UK release date: January 9)
Haunting adaptation of a true story featuring superb performances from a strong cast. Steve Carell is creepiness personified as John E du Pont, the unstable multi-millionaire who founds a wrestling academy to train US Olympic hopefuls. Suffice to say, it doesn’t end well...

13. Wild Tales
(Director: Damián Szifrón UK release date: March 27)
Argentine portmanteau featuring six stories about rage and vengeance. The final sequence centring on the meltdown of a couple’s relationship at their wedding (below) is a tour de force of bleak humour and brutal emotion.

12. The Duke of Burgundy
(Director: Peter Strickland UK release date: February 20)
BDSM and lepidoptery (the study of butterflies and moths) make strange but beguiling bedfellows in this eccentric and gorgeous lesbian relationship drama. Not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.

11. Mad Max: Fury Road 
(Director: George Miller UK release date: May 15)
Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy, pictured at the top of the page) returns to the post-apocalyptic Aussie badlands in a movie for which the term high-octane was surely invented. Charlize Theron’s badass Imperator Furiosa steals the film out from under him though.

Numbers 10-1 coming later in the week...

Amazing stunts and eye-popping visuals make Mad Max: Fury Road the year’s first must-see blockbuster

Review

Mad Max: Fury Road
Director: George Miller
Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult
Running time: 120 mins

The first Mad Max film since 1985’s Beyond Thunderdome (all together now: “We don’t need another heeerrrooo…”) is, essentially, a two-hour chase, albeit a visually stunning, incredibly imaginative one, with jaw-dropping stunt work and some impressive world building. It only has two settings – very fast and very loud – going all the way up to 11 from the get go… and staying there.

In an oil-depleted, radiation-ruined future dystopia, Hardy is Max Rockatansky, the tough but taciturn Road Warrior character originally played by Mel Gibson all those years ago. He is captured by the War Boys, soldiers loyal to Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne – Toecutter in 1979’s first film), a fearsome warlord who “owns” the local water supply and uses that fact to keep his downtrodden subjects fearful and supine.

Max escapes and makes common cause with Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a one-armed badass who has betrayed Joe, stolen his gargantuan “war rig” and struck out for the “Green Place”, a land of plenty that supposedly exists somewhere beyond the rad-ravaged wasteland. To enrage him further, Furiosa has liberated Joe’s five “wives” – one of whom is heavily pregnant with his child. He – and a bizarre army of ne’er do wells – gives chase.

Those who know their British comic-books will immediately recognise Brendan McCarthy’s twisted imagination at play in every frame here. Whether he was drawing Spider-Man, Judge Dredd, Paradax or Freakwave, the movie’s co-writer and chief visionary always had an uncanny ability to bring the weird in a way few other artists could match. That sensibility looms large in Fury Road, creating a world that you wouldn’t want to visit but one that is beautifully-realised and easy to believe in. You can practically feel the desert heat on your face and the sand and dirt under your fingernails.

The trucks, cars, motorbikes and armoured vehicles on display are particularly impressive, all battered black chrome, steel porcupine spikes and multiple, oil-dripping exhausts – the old Wacky Races cartoon show reimagined by the Marquis de Sade. Meanwhile, Immortan Joe and his men – big on leather, skulls and scarification – look like the moshpit at a GWAR gig. Joe’s mad convoy even includes synchronised drummers and a guitarist complete with an instrument that shoots flames out of its neck.

If the visuals are impressive, the stunt work is even better. The most thrilling sequence sees the war rig under siege from assailants on long poles attached to fast-moving vehicles. These so-called “Pole Cats” swoop down to attack or carry off their victims, while Max, Nux and their team-mates try desperately to fight them off and outrun them. It is ridiculously exciting and head-spinningly OTT; probably the best blockbuster action scene I’ve witnessed in a very long time. How Miller will go about upping the ante for Mad Max 5 is anyone’s guess.

CGI is kept to a minimum but when it is used it is used expertly. There’s a scene early on when Furiosa steers the war rig into a colossal sand storm quickly followed by their pursuers. Once inside, we see the maelstrom in all its nightmarish, psychedelic glory as numerous vehicles are pulverised by the brutal winds and lightning, hapless passengers smashed, bashed and hurled through the air like rag dolls. Another bravura segment.

Much has been made of the fact Theron’s Furiosa, rather than Max, is actually the film’s main character, to which the only right and proper reaction is surely so what? The Mad Max franchise was always more about the world than the man – teetering on the brink of apocalypse in 1979’s debut, gone fully to hell by the time Thunderdome rolled around six years later. Max – a fairly generic badass/avenger made more interesting than he really was by Mel Gibson’s intensity and charisma – was never the highlight of these films. So the idea a fairly limited character has had to shove over and cede someone else the limelight isn’t one that should worry anyone… anyone sane that is.

If there is anything more worthless and depressing in 2015 than all this “men’s rights” nonsense I’ve yet to see it. It isn’t even as if there aren’t precedents for main characters being little more than co-stars in their own films. Wesley Snipes was upstaged by Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biels’ Night Stalkers in Blade Trinity, while Michael Keaton was pretty much a guest star in Batman Returns as Tim Burton concentrated on Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and The Penguin (Danny DeVito). When Godzilla only appeared for 11 minutes in last year’s Gareth Edwards-directed blockbuster I don’t remember any “Big Lizard” rights groups sobbing into their neck beards about it.

To hear some of these “menanist” mentalists go on, you’d think Fury Road starred Andrea Dworkin and boasted a script based on Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto. So let’s get some perspective here. Like a thousand other action-adventure films, it features goodies and baddies. The only difference is that, for once, the vast majority of the goodies are women (except Max, and Nux, the War Boy played by Nicholas Hoult) and most of the bad guys are… well, guys. Yes, there’s a patriarchal element to Immortan Joe’s Citadel society (conventionally attractive women are used for breeding purposes, while others are “milked” to provide sustenance), but women’s bodies aren’t the only things Joe seeks to control. Like most dictators he also regulates resources (water, oil), access and information, and the underclass he lords it over is made up of both men and women. So, while Fury Road is certainly a movie with sound feminist credentials, it’s hardly Thelma and Louise.

Besides Furiosa is a terrific character – a kind of post-apocalyptic Ellen Ripley. Brave, resourceful and a true survivor, she clearly has a fascinating backstory that I hope Miller, McCarthy and Co delve into in future instalments.

Hardy is a solid, charismatic action hero who has Max's thousand-yard stare down pat. But I prefer him in smaller, low-key films – Locke and The Drop being two recent examples – where he is gifted the time and space to really delve into whichever character he is playing. He isn’t given that luxury here or even a lot to do, apart from run from and fight off War Boys while suffering painful flashbacks to the death of a young girl (his daughter?). He’s rocking a very strange, almost Bane-esque, accent, too.

Two hours is an awful long time to sustain a cat and mouse chase but director Miller – whose credits since Thunderdome have included The Witches of Eastwick, Babe: Pig in the City and the two Happy Feet movies – just about gets away with it. The 70-year-old keeps those blood-pumping set-pieces coming thick and fast, while making sure our protagonists never loiter in one place for long. It’s exuberant, hi-octane and completely barking bloody mad. Yes, the actual plot errs on the thin side but that simplicity is perhaps something to cherish after the overstuffed antics of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Unlike Joss Whedon’s unwieldy sequel, Fury Road’s sturm und drang never once becomes a sturm und drag.

Rating: WWWW

Mad Max: Fury Road is in cinemas now

Ratings

WWWW = Wonderful
WWW = Worthwhile
WW = Watchable
W = Woeful