"In this Wasteland, I am the one who runs from both the living and the dead. A man reduced to a single instinct: survive."

- Mad Max

Those who endure life-threatening situations and manage to survive often have a hard time letting go of their ordeals. Overcoming obstacles and returning to the land of the living are equally daunting. But survivors cannot afford to get imprisoned in the past: their challenge is to heal their bodies and minds so they can move into the future with hope.

Max (Tom Hardy) is a warrior who has no place to go in a time 45 years after the fall of the world. Civilization has vanished, and it's a dog-eat-dog realm where the only two precious commodities are oil and water. Food is hard to find, and the air is poisoned.

A scene from Mad Max: Fury Road

The weak cling to the words and the promises of the Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) who has invented a religion to keep his War Boys under his power. Kindness and mercy are not part of it.

"As the world fell, each of us in our own way was broken. It was hard to know who was more crazy. . . me or everyone else."

- Max

Max is the ultimate loner mythologized in various cultures as the gunslinger of the Wild West, the traveling Ronin Samurai, or the solitary Viking Warrior. He goes his own way no matter what the circumstances. Community is not for him. Max is broken as he stands alone on the Plains of Silence, haunted by ghosts and demons from the past. But he is not ready to lay down the burden of life just yet.

A scene from Mad Max: Fury Road

Max revs up his car and heads off into the wilderness where after a long battle with crazy War Boys he is taken as a prisoner to the Citadel. Also there are the Immortan Joe's five wives. With everyone dying of pollution, the power-obsessed ruler is busy impregnating them in a quest for a healthy male heir.

"We are not things!"

- The Five Wives

Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) is a rough and tough survivor who cannot abide the Immortan Joe's treatment of these women as tools and objects. She decides to liberate them from the tower and take them home to the green place she remembers from childhood. Furiosa hides them in a petro tanker going out on a routine run. Soon the Immortan is leading the chase after this bold female traitor and the Five Wives: The Splendid Angharad (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), Capable (Riley Keogh), Toast the Knowing (Zoe Kravitz), Cheedo the Fragile (Courtney Eaton), and The Dag (Abbey Lee).

A scene from Mad Max: Fury Road

In all the chaos in the Citadel, Max escapes and winds up as an ally of Furiosa and her mission. Also along for the wild ride through the desert is Nux (Nicholas Hoult), a loyal War Boy, who in the heat of battle has to make a choice between affection with a woman or loyalty to promises of a Warrior's special place in the paradise of Valhalla.

"I think of action movies as a kind of visual music, and Fury Road is somewhere between a wild rock concert and an opera. I want to sweep the audience out of their seats into an intense, rambunctious ride, and along the way you get to know who these characters are and the events that led up to their story."

- George Miller

Tom Hardy plays Mad Max as the strong and silent type hero to a "T." Charlize Theron excels as a woman warrior who yearns for home and proves herself to be a brave and clever warrior. Convincing performances by the other actors, stunning set design, and evocative music all add to the overall impact of the film.

George Miller was the mastermind behind three earlier films: Mad Max (1979), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). Thirty years later, he reboots this franchise taking advantage of developments in special effects technologies without losing any of the emotional clout these films are known for. He accomplishes what he set out to do: make an action movie that takes us on an moving and unforgettable ride.

All we can say is: Wait until you see this. It's going to knock your socks off!

Special features on the DVD include Maximum Fury: Filming Fury Road; Mad Max: Fury on Four Wheels; The Road Warriors: Max and Furiosa; The Tools of the Wasteland; The Five Wives: So Shiny, So Chrome; Fury Road: Crash & Smash; I Am A Milker; Turn Every Grain Of Sand!; Let's Do This.