After enduring seriously gruelling conditions that saw cast and crew basically living in the Namib desert (where temperatures dip to near freezing at night) for close to six months; being consistently coated in dust; and spending days on end in the back of enormous rigs, we’d imagine hitting the red carpet circuit is a huge relief for all of the stars in Mad Max: Fury Road.
While stars Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy are glossing it up in Cannes ahead of the much-anticipated screening, the Aussie contingent of the cast and crew, including Megan Gale, Nathan Jones, John Howard, and Director George Miller, got to have their moment in the lights last night at the Australian premiere.
Megan Gale, who spent the first day on set completely nude, told AAP, “There’s a reason my character’s nude so it’s relevant, it’s not nude for the sake of getting nude.” And continued that, in fact, it was working with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron that really intimidated her.
“I was more worried about the scene with her than being nude because I didn’t want to let her down. So that was pretty terrifying.”
Actor John Howard, who plays The People Eater, told AAP it wasn’t so much himself he was worried about, but the stuntmen; ““For the crusty demons, and people like that, they were way out on a limb, and a long way from help. And some of the stunts that they do are extraordinary and the real deal.”
Although the premiere took place at George Street Event Cinemas, it was the Cahill Expressway and Circular Quay that experienced the real mayhem yesterday as some of the monstrous vehicles from the movie to film a scene to promote the film. The incredible vehicles, filled with leather-clad maniacs from the post-apocalyptic film, were a talking point for Sydney siders all day — shutting down the expressway before forming a base camp near the Opera House where stunt performers showed off.
All this local buzz was to be expected as the film has been predicted to become the biggest Australian movie of all time. Internationally, it has exceeded all expectations. Despite (or, perhaps, because of) the pressure that’s involved with being a part of a cult-status franchise with an incredibly strong fan base, by all accounts Mad Max: Fury Road is a masterpiece; unique in its strong female stars (Rosie Hungtinton Whiteley, Zoe Kravitz, Abbey Lee Kershaw, and Teresa Palmer all appear in the film beside star Charlize Theron) and a visual feat.
In fact, with 85 reviews counted, Rotten Tomatoes has ranked the film with an incredible average of 9.1 out of 10. Impressive is an understatement.
Here are some choice quotes from the initial reviews:
“In short, it’s a blessed deliverance from the tiresome universe-building, sanitized violence and rampant sexism of, say, the bloated Marvel epics.” New York Post’s Lou Lumenick raved. Like many, he praised Theron’s work, saying, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Theron collected her third Oscar nomination (she won Best Actress for “Monster”) for her dazzling work as Imperator Furiosa, a smart, fearsome, one-armed rogue soldier bent on smuggling five women to freedom inside a gasoline truck with Max’s initially reluctant help.”
Erin Free at Film Ink describes the film as, “a caterwauling game-changer, with George Miller mining meaning from mayhem with bravura flair,” continuing that, “Charlize Theron is superb in what is actually the film’s central role, driving the action and bringing the story together.”
“Thirty years have passed since our last visit to George Miller’s sun-scorched post-apocalyptic wasteland,” Variety’s Justin Chang writes, “and yet “worth the wait” still seems a puny response to the two hours of ferocious, unfettered B-movie bliss offered by “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy has only praise for the Miller, “This madly entertaining new action extravaganza energetically kicks more ass, as well as all other parts of the anatomy, than any film ever made by a 70-year-old – and does so far more skillfully than those turned out by most young turks half his age.”
“Extravagantly deranged, ear-splittingly cacophonous, and entirely over the top,” begins The Guardian’s PeterBradshaw, “George Miller has revived his Mad Max punk-western franchise as a bizarre convoy chase action-thriller in the post-apocalyptic desert.”
A four-starred review from Jake Wilson at the Sydney Morning Herald reads, “…the real star of Fury Road is Charlize Theron as the magnificently named Imperator Furiosa, a road warrior in her own right with a prosthetic arm and an attitude of grim determination – the kind of take-no-prisoners action heroine rarely seen in recent Hollywood cinema.”
Watch the trailer below
