Mad Max: Fury Road 2015

Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com: Believe all the hype: This movie will melt your face off. Read more

Alex Pappademas, Grantland: Fury Road is also one of the best action movies of the decade, a punk Last Judgment with manic invention and depraved wit on display in every frame. Read more

Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press: Thirty years after Miller gave the world Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, he's returned to his own post-apocalyptic world and created an exceptional, fearless and poetic masterpiece that's primed to become a modern classic. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: This spectacularly great reboot is surprisingly owned not by Hardy, who is fine, but by Charlize Theron. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Thirty years have passed since our last visit to George Miller's sun-scorched post-apocalyptic wasteland, 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." Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: With Fury Road, director George Miller returns to the lawless, oil-deprived future of his seminal series for the first time in three decades. It was worth the wait. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: It is insane. In a good way. Whoever said "Too much is never enough" made an impression on Miller, who uses the phrase as a starting point and blasts off from there. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The shock, really, is how tender Mad Max: Fury Road ultimately becomes. The film just wraps that tenderness in one of the most epic action extravaganzas of recent years. It's enough to renew your faith in movies. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: Even after two viewings, I feel as though I've only scratched the surface of Mad Max: Fury Road. George Miller's action fantasy is astonishingly dense for a big-budget spectacle, not only in its imagery and ideas but in the complex interplay between them. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The creator of the original Mad Max trilogy has whipped up a gargantuan grunge symphony of vehicular mayhem that makes Furious 7 look like Curious George. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Miller has the dubious distinction of essentially creating the post-apocalyptic action genre, and in this film, set some 40 years after the fall of the world, he outdoes himself. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: There's enough horror remixed here -- of the Heart of Darkness version -- to engage our current moment. That should be one of the obligations of a reboot. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: There's no great meaning here - it's a basic story of rebellion and redemption. But there's such energy and visual invention in a world so fully realized and dazzling that the roller coaster ride is more than enough on its own. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: It's a surreal, operatic take on the action movie that makes its direct predecessors - Mad Max, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and even the mighty Road Warrior - seem almost timid by comparison. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: Fury Road not only captures the same Molotov-cocktail craziness of Miller's masterpiece, 1981's The Road Warrior-it's also a surprisingly hypercaffeinated film for a director in his fifth decade behind the camera. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Mad Max: Fury Road provokes the same question from its audience again and again: What can you show me next? The answer is always the same: Something even more outlandish and imaginative than what you just saw. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: 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. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Miller ... dreamed the mighty dream that is this film for more than a decade before being able to bring it to life. It has been worth the wait. Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: Miller has breathed new life not just to his own series but the action genre itself. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: This is a huge yet surprisingly fleet and brisk picture that celebrates the visceral, primal pleasures of movies. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: The first "Mad Max" movie in 30 years doesn't disappoint -- it's a sonic-speed juggernaut of violence and destruction. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: For anyone who denied that Titus Andronicus could ever be mashed up with The Cannonball Run, here is your answer, and we are only too happy to follow Nux as he cries, "What a lovely day!," and accelerates into a whirlwind of fire. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Flaws in the story - some easy political posturing, too many shallow characters - can't even come close to touching George Miller's strengths: A nightmarish visual imagery, an easy command of composition, a relentless sense of pace. Read more

Chris Klimek, NPR: A kinetic, hallucinatory, boldly feminist chase flick that, with its vibrant color palette, harrowing stunt work and show-don't-tell style of yarn-spinning, leaves every Marvel movie and every Fast & Furious in its irradiated dust. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: A gorgeous, scrap-metal demolition derby of a popcorn picture. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Strap in, load up and hang on because "Mad Max: Fury Road" is a freaky, ballsy, phenomenal ride. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Even in the most chaotic fights and collisions, everything makes sense. ... And Mr. Miller demonstrates that great action filmmaking is not only a matter of physics but of ethics as well. There is cause and effect; there are choices and consequences. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Miller has found his heavy metal groove (one of the legion of freaky baddies is strapped to the front of a truck, grinding out a sonic burn of electric guitar licks for the entire movie). Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Mad Max: Fury Road delivers. There's no clearer or more succinct way to put it. 30 years after last appearing on the big screen, Max roars back with a vengeance. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: It speaks volumes for the sheer ferocious awesome insane greatness of "Mad Max: Fury Road" that I'm not even ticked off about Tom Hardy getting stuck wearing a face mask for a good chunk of the film. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Hardy and Theron make a dynamite team, but Theron is the film's bruised heart and soul. So get prepped for a new action classic. You won't know what hit you. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: "Fury's" pace is delirious, the stunts are incredible - such crashes, such explosions, such a lot of flying bodies - Hardy's performance is a marvel of subdued conviction and Theron brings an impressive gravity to her work as Furiosa. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Two hours of action scenes that are well crafted and entirely lacking in suspense, and with some clever but fake-looking special effects. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Essentially, the story is one extended, spectacular car chase, which changes directions mid-movie to retrace its own footsteps as the stunts grow bigger and more outrageous with each passing mile. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: If you're a devotee of director George Miller's earlier Mad Max adventures, you're in for a thrilling reunion. If you haven't met this international treasure yet, prepare for a treat. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: This is analog filmmaking at its most daring. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: An A-plus B-movie that at times feels almost like a tone poem to early-'80s excess, a cross between a monster-truck rally and a Plasmatics concert. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Globe and Mail: A double-barrelled shotgun enema straight to the senses, George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road is an exercise in relentless, pedal-to-the-metal momentum that can only qualify as savagely pleasurable. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Varoom, varoom! Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: In the same way that the original 1979 Mad Max was the Citizen Kane of gut-bucket Australian exploitation cinema, Mad Max: Fury Road may well be the Gotterdammerung of drive-in movies. Read more

David Ehrlich, Time Out: Exhilarating... Pretty much the entire film is a screaming death race down Fury Road. Read more

Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun: Fury Road, with its sensational photography, set design and other technical attributes that bring this fourth Mad Max into the 21st century, will only add more legions of fans to the now-legendary franchise. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: An operatic extravaganza of thrilling action and nearly non-stop mayhem ... exhilarating, deranged and exhausting in almost equal measures. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: About 90 minutes in ... my dazzlement sank into something like horror: What if the wasteland rage of Fury Road is the only feeling studio movies of the future bother to stir in us? Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: I saw it twice and liked it vastly more the second time around, when I'd adjusted my expectations and had my bearings from the get-go. Then it became about digging the spectacle - not to mention the hilarious sexual politics. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: The "Mad Max" franchise was never for everyone, yet it clearly benefits from fresh blood, too. Propelled by Miller's nitro-burning aesthetic vision and an entertaining cast, this turbo-charged new model is a gas, gas, gas. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: A gleefully violent -- and improbably feminist -- phantasmagoria that turns epic road rage and long stretches of vehicular omnicide into an eye-boggling joy ride. Read more