Just when we think the Hollywood sequel-reboot-retread machine has worn itself down to a useless nub, along comes a movie to remind us that, sometimes, another dip in the same well can taste just as sweet. That’s certainly the case for “Mad Max: Fury Road,” the fourth of director George Miller‘s smash-em-up derbies and the first one since 1985’s “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.”
Yes, it’s been 30 years, and yes, Mel Gibson is no longer playing the titular road warrior, but Miller’s skill at this sort of grand adventure has only grown in the meantime; “Fury Road” is a breathlessly intense opera of violence and vehicular mayhem that demands both awe and multiple viewings to absorb everything that’s happening in his packed, but never overcrowded, widescreen vistas.