The wait is nearly over.
Mad Max: Fury Road is being released this week and critics have been falling over themselves to lavish praise on the reboot.
The first reviews have flooded in this afternoon and it seems like director George Miller’s new film is a unanimous hit with most publications giving it four or five stars. It currently has a 100 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Tom Hardy takes over from Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, who must escape the clutches of evil warlord Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) with the help of a one-armed rebel called Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron).
The general consensus is that it’s light on plot, heavy on action and as a demented as a box of frogs while Hardy and Theron win praise for their performances.
MORE: Win tickets to a Mad Max: Fury Road preview screening – in cinemas May 14
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Here’s what critics have been saying about Mad Max: Fury Road
Jamie Graham - Total Film
‘In the battle of the 2015 behemoths, the maxed-out madness of Mad Max: Fury Road sets an extraordinarily high bar – then pole-vaults clean over it and smashes the entire rig to smithereens.’
Ian Nathan - Empire
‘Imagine a movie where Tom Hardy is the point of calm. Max’s re-enfranchisement is a triumph of barking-mad imagination, jaw-dropping action, crackpot humour, and acting in the face of a hurricane.’
Robbie Collins - The Daily Telegraph
‘Hardy is totally commanding on screen, and brings a certain camp detachment to the lead role, almost as if he had dragged up as himself to play it.’
Peter Bradshaw - The Guardian
‘Extravagantly deranged, ear-splittingly cacophonous, and entirely over the top, George Miller has revived his Mad Max punk-western franchise as a bizarre convoy chase action-thriller in the post-apocalyptic desert.’
Justin Chang - Variety
‘The sort of exhilarating gonzo entertainment that makes even the nuttier “Fast and Furious” movies look like Autopia test drives, this expertly souped-up return to Max Rockatansky’s world of “fire and blood” finds Tom Hardy confidently donning Mel Gibson’s well-worn leather chaps.’
David Ehrlich - Time Out
”Fury Road’ steers this macho franchise in a brilliant new direction, forging a mythical portrait about the need for female rule in a world where men need to be saved from themselves.’
Eric Kohn - Indiewire
‘The main effective ingredient in “Fury Road” is its ongoing motion. The chases largely pivot on insane car-to-car acrobatics, narrow exchanges of gunfire and metal smashing together at ridiculously high speeds. Inspiring fear and giddy excitement in equal measures, “Fury Road” suggests the unruly collision of “Ben Hur” and a Road Runner cartoon.’
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