Things begin inside the mountain stronghold ruled by Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), an inbred monster who lords over a society that guzzles its citizens like fuel. While previous episodes were set amid the rubble of a ruined world, the colourful hyper-saturated landscapes of this new movie locate the story closer to the dawn of a new civilization than the twilight of an old one. Yet much has changed in the wasteland that Max wanders.

He’s been transformed from a reluctantly charismatic Gibson into a terse Tom Hardy. It’s been 30 years since we last watched Mel Gibson’s Max Rockatansky drift into the horizon in ‘Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome’, but the Road Warrior hasn’t aged a day. In an age of weightless movie spectacles, here’s a movie that feels like it was made by kidnapping $150 million of studio money, fleeing with it to the Namibian desert, and sending footage back to Hollywood like the amputated body parts of a ransomed hostage. The fourth instalment of George Miller’s punky post-apocalyptic ‘Mad Max’ saga feels like a tornado tearing through a tea party.

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