Max Rockatansky. Imperator Furiosa. Rictus Erectus. Toast The Knowing. The Splendid Angharad. Cheedo The Fragile. The Organic Mechanic. Keeper of the Seeds. Nux. Slit. Those are just a few of the characters I met last night.

If the future indeed belongs to the mad men and women of George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, then strap me in for the long ride. This 120 power packed thrill ride is exactly the kind of movie to spring us into the summer wind. After getting superpower wasted with Avengers last weekend, Miller’s full throttle rebooting is just what the audience needs. Engine, grease, bullets, blood, tears and lots of extreme action. The kind of action that makes you forget about all the amateur action you’ve seen lately. The kind of chase scenes that make you want to get into a muscle car, find a sandy road and blow down it without thinking about anything else. Fury Road is an original model, something you’ve never seen before and may never see again, unless you see a chained up Tom Hardy swing into your front seat.

Hardy’s casting and Miller’s return made me get excited about this Mad Max return. Hardy doesn’t take a day off at the office and sinks his teeth into every single project he does. While some movie stars see fit to waste their lives and talent for a boatload of cash, Hardy doesn’t like to mess around and makes the Max role his own. The hero here is cut from the darker cloth and doesn’t speak a ton, so it’s good that Hardy can transcribe a thesis statement of emotions and words with a series of looks. Hardy is like Clive Owen and Russell Crowe at their best, actors who can carve a lot out with a little. People have complained Hardy isn’t fit to fill Mel Gibson’s shoes, and I’ll tell them Gibson signed off on Hardy and it’s easy to see. He’s dirty, grimy, and keeps you on your heels. This is his first bona fide action hero role and Hardy never lets it seem like a gimmick. He’s in every single scene and carries the weight of the film on his back, since his name is kind of in the title. Sure, the first 30 minutes of the film sees him wheezing out of a metal mask on his face, so people will think this is Bane reloaded, but Hardy turns him into something else entirely by the end of the film. A walking wounded loner looking for redemption. Aren’t we all? (more…)

Watching a 54 year old action star with a receding hairline try to keep the good old days alive on screen carries a well mixed brew of nostalgia, sadness and hidden glee. Jean-Claude Van Damme’s latest direct to On Demand/DVD effort, Pound of Flesh, isn’t a complete waste of time or miserable experience but it does make you think about the sharper days of Lionheart, Kickboxer and Double Impact. If this movie was released 20 years ago, it may have worked. Today, in a day and age where fight choreography has been taken to a whole other level, Pound of Flesh seems tired.

Van Damme plays Deacon, a man who checks into a hotel only to wake up the next day not feeling so hot. A woman who crossed his path rolls around in his head while he figures out that a part of him is missing. A kidney. He finds money, meds and an ace of spades waiting for him. That’s the first complaint. How many times are filmmakers going to use an ace of spades as a big turning point in a story or a big bad guy mark. Why not use a Jack of Hearts or a scrabble piece just to change things up. Like I said, the mechanics used here by director Ernie Barbarash and writer Joshua James are overused and stale. (more…)