Mad Max: Fury Road preview

The wait is nearly over. Three decades since the last instalment of the franchise and, infamously, 25 years in the making -- or “development hell”, as director George Miller once put it -- Mad Max is back on the big screen in all of its full-throttle, high-octane (death or) glory.

The film that announced the hitherto unknown Mel Gibson’s arrival on an unsuspecting world, in the process giving Australian cinema a turbo-boost on a par with the V8s the films made famous, is finally set to release the fourth part of its series — Mad Max: Fury Road.

For loyal Mad Max disciples, the interval between 1985’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Fury Road has seemed eternal and the sense of anticipation has reached fever pitch.

As the disappointing remakes of fellow futuristic cult classics Total Recall and Robocop have shown, though, updating bombastic, madcap sci-fi 1980s thrillers for a 21st century audience is fraught with danger. For Mad Max fans, that anxiety is even more pronounced.

Officially both a reboot and a detached ‘sidequel’ — Mad Max: Fury Road is set in between the original 1979 classic and its follow-up two years later -- fans will be heartened by the many comforting parallels they will find in the Namibian desert-filmed post-apocalyptic dystopia.

Gangs still hold an iron grip on the roads, while human slaves and water have joined blood and oil as sought-after commodities in an ever-anarchic society.

On the surface, then, Mad Max: Fury Road covers familiar terrain. There are, however, two glaring differences between the new incarnation and the much-loved original trilogy.

The challenge of filling Mel Gibson’s sizeable leather jacket has fallen to Brit actor Tom Hardy, notable for his evil turn as Bane from The Dark Knight Rises.

Hardy forms a formidable partnership with Charlize Theron, playing Imperator Furiosa, as the pair first do battle and then join forces to travel the desert.

Gibson’s Mad Max casts a huge shadow, but for Hardy it was a case of concentrating on the task at hand. “I find it much simpler to interpret people who make me wonder what it's like to be in their skin, maybe to be tougher than I am,” he says.

Any apprehension on Hardy’s part is understandable; for Mad Max purists, Gibson will forever be the iconic title role, and few expect Hardy to be able to compare. Regardless, in Hardy’s favour is the fact that he was unlikely to ever be the star attraction in any case.

That’s because the other, principle issue for Mad Max loyalists is the cars. For petrol-heads, Mad Max changed not only the way cars could be deployed on film but also how they could be accommodated and constructed off it and used on the real-life road. As a result, expectations, excitement and intrigue abound, with a big dose of scepticism thrown in for good measure.

But any lack of faith is misplaced, and disregards history. All the way back from the first film, Miller and his team have displayed an innovative approach to the manufacture of Max’s vehicles, and mechanic Goose’s famous line to Max on how he built his motors -- "it just happened Max, you know… a piece from here and a piece from there” -- has become not just a mantra but a way of life for the film-makers and its devotees.

Miller himself says that “all the vehicles are kind of hybrid, cobbled together, from the wrecks of the past”, and you only have to look at the evolution of Max’s cars for proof.

Max's first ride, the now-iconic black V8 Interceptor, which also came to be known as a ‘Pursuit Special’, has gone down in film folklore.

Beginning as a white 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe, the car was originally homage to old Australian police cars, before Miller hired Murray Smith when post-production began on Mad Max in 1976.

Smith, tasked with creating the Interceptor, bought the XB and began the modifications with renowned Australian automotive designer Peter Arcadipane, who created the now iconic front fibreglass nosecone and also designed the original Mercedes-Benz M-Class and W215 CL, and is now the design boss at Chinese car company BAIC.

By Mad Max 2: Road Warrior, the Interceptor was again heavily modified -- the rear wheels, supercharger and exhausts were changed, and bigger fuel tanks installed at the car’s rear, along with hidden self-destruct devices designed to explode in the event of bandits attacking, to prepare it for the challenges of the wildernesses.

So what can we expect 30 years later? The answer is a more up-to-date, revamped version of the Pursuit Special of Mad Max 2. Once again taking the Falcon XB as its starting point, the new car, with a giant Weiand blower sticking through the bonnet and redesigned headlights, was first altered all the way back in 2001, with no headlight covers, a metal concorde front-end and not one but two tanks.

The final version you’ll see in Mad Max: Fury Road was modified in 2011. Boasting a clipped front bumper and mesh-style headlights, the car has been given a rough, film-ready makeover with all the paint stripped off, work done on the body panels and an exhaust that exhales black smoke to emphasise the rough and ready conditions in which Max drives it.

And it is seeing Max drive the new car in those very conditions -- the crew relocated to Swakopmund in the Namibian desert to film their 200km/h stunts, with very little post-production CGI -- that will ultimately be the test as to whether fans feel the Mad Max legacy has been enhanced or tarnished.

The film’s makers know what the fans want. Max fanatics might have hoped for cameos from the original vehicles, but those patched-up 1970s Australian clunkers wouldn’t have survived the post-apocalyptic landscape that Mad Max inhabits, and the Namibian desert is far removed from the Aussie outback that was patrolled by Mel Gibson and originally planned to host this film.

However, the result of the enormous $300 million budget that Miller has lavished on it has allowed Mad Max: Fury Road to remain true to the franchise’s very essence by modifying the one thing that was irreplaceable in any remake: Mad Max’s beloved Interceptor. And after 30 years that, at the very least, will have been worth the wait.

Mad Max: Fury Road is in cinemas from May 14