Noah Cassidy’s review published on Letterboxd:
WITNESS ME
Really is just one of the best movies ever made, huh? Kind of humiliating that this has a mere 4.1 on here, but I have that add-on where the rating for a movie is calculated based on the specific people you follow, and there it's at least a much better 4.4. So, hey, if we follow each other on here, know you have good taste in cinema. It's been way too long since I've seen this from start to finish, and I've had a very rocky relationship with Mad Max: Fury Road since its initial release. When I saw it back in 2015 in theaters, I liked it, but thought it was overrated. I remember my big take from that year that I would tell people because I thought it was funny was that I liked Sharknado 3 more than this. (Look, I was definitely dumb and sixteen.) It's the type of movie where when I've come across it more and more, my estimations have gone up. On the first watch, I thought it was good. On watch number two, I thought it was very good. On watch number three, it was great. On watch number four, it was fantastic. So on and so forth. If I had to guess, this is probably watch number seven or eight, and it only continues going further up. As of now, I'll outright attest to it being not just in the upper echelon of my all-time favorite movies, it's an almost inarguable pick for the "best" film of the 21st century. Anyone who would claim it as such would get zero push-back from me. Even in this series beforehand with its glorious moments of ramshackle action and lunatic lore, there is really nothing that looks, feels, and sounds like this. I think there's maybe like four or five moments of this that measure as any sense of calm or a pause from the action. Beyond that, it's constant movement, cars driven, explosions, guns, and being painted shiny and chrome for the gates of Valhalla. Every performance and character, no matter how small, is memorable and either truly lovely or lovable to hate. My favorite character and performance from the whole affair is Nicholas Hoult as Nux, towing the line between that aforementioned dynamic of being a little weasel as well as being just a well-constructed and sympathetic figure. I do also want to briefly touch on how underrated I think Tom Hardy is as Max. I like that in terms of the actual construction of the story and how much of a standalone work it is, Mel Gibson could have with absolutely certainty played Max again and it all still would have worked. However, Hardy picks up the role and makes the man of few words still feel like a living and breathing person as much as he is a bit of an audience surrogate through this wasteland. I love how beyond the overly dramatic (meant fondly) introduction narration, Max's sentences are mostly five words or less, and he primarily communicates through eye movements, body language, and grunts. His behavior comes through as the mantra of Mad Max: Fury Road itself: Actions speak louder than words. Instead of saying things, show them. This is a medium of sight and sound, so if you're going to make a movie that's essentially a two hour long car chase, then milk that premise like no mother has been milked before. Junkie XL goes ham with the score, the colors in this are so vibrant that I just truly do not know how some sequences even look the way they do, and George Miller on this film alone proves himself as one of the most inventive and authentically gonzo minds in this industry. It's been a long wait, but I'm excited to know that he finally has a new film so close to release. With him and with Max and Furiosa, I enter Mad Max: Fury Road and feel as much witnessed as I was witnessing.
10/10
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