That's my child!
My property!
George Miller's Mad Max films have
seen numerous iconic villains over the years,
from Toecutter to Lord Humungus to Aunty Entity.
The series of Australian post-apocalyptic epics
have delivered us some of the most far out characters ever
put to film.
However, there is one villain that
has menaced the wasteland more than all the others.
Carrying on the tradition of flamboyant and over-the-top
villains, Immortan Joe has a real sense
of terror and worldbuilding that are directly
linked to his physical body.
Everything about Joe oozes power and might.
In many ways, he is the engine that
drives the whole movie forward.
Sure, everyone talks about the practical stunts,
prolonged chases, and intense action as to what
makes Fury Road so spectacular.
But it's really Immortan Joe that catalyzes all
of those aspects of the film.
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Miller wanted to make an entire movie that
was one chase sequence.
And to fuel that chase, you need a villain with keen motivation.
Instead of writing a script, Miller worked laboriously
with beloved British comic book artist Brendan McCarthy
storyboarding every shot in the movie,
building out the world as they went.
This method of working had a tangible effect
on the central villain of the piece.
Played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, the same actor who played Toecutter
in the original Mad Max, the character
has a physical prowess and menace to him
that villains rarely do.
Usually the villains of the Mad Max world
have small scale success.
They're motorbike gang leaders or at best
they rule over small encampments of people.
But a story that was this fast-moving and this
high octane needed a villain to match it.
Immortan Joe-- or as we learn through the Mad Max Fury Road
comics, Colonel Joe Moore--
is a man who has taken over a fortified aquifer
and developed a cult around himself.
His War Boys worship him as the emperor
of the wastes, an anointed holy man who
has the keys to Valhalla.
Joe as a means to manipulate and control the masses
has developed a religion based around V8 engines.
He's declared himself a dictatorial god king.
You can betray a man, no problem.
A god?
That takes some serious gull.
When we are introduced to Joe, we see him
as an elderly decrepit man.
He has failing lungs, lesions, and is obviously
not long for this world.
However, as his assistants and warboys
affix armor, sculpted to look powerful and impressive,
we see him visually evolve from the dying Joe Moore
to Immortan Joe, God King.
It is by my hand, you will rise from the ashes of this world.
It would be tempting to say that Joe's success as a villain
lies in his physical might.
But it's really in his mind.
And it's here that we witness just how smart he truly is.
He's a manipulator.
He's an underhanded beast of the apocalypse
who has risen to power through pure will and tenacity.
His impeding death has caused him
to be obsessed with producing an heir
to carry on his reign of despotic control.
As such, he's taken five wives with which
he hopes to sire a child.
The main plot of Fury Road revolves around Furiosa and Max
on the run from Joe and his men as they attempt
to get the wives to the mythical Green Place with the added
complication that one of Joe's wives,
played by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley,
is currently pregnant.
Where is she taking them?
She didn't take them, they begged her to go.
While the majority of the film revolves around Joe and his War
Boys chasing the wives through the wasteland,
it's the wrinkles and quirks of Joe's character
that give him and the world its texture.
It's his ego that fuels the chase.
It's his desire that sends the hundreds of soldiers
after Max and Furiosa.
And it's Joe's eccentricities that make it all so memorable.
Joe is someone who understands the importance of spectacle.
He understands why it's important to show people
how strong you are, even when you're obviously dying.
Thus a hundred car road trip into hell
sporting a flamethrower guitar player and circus performers
on pikes.
You look amazing.
You'd expect him to be a purely evil monster, and he is.
But he's also tender and genuinely hurt
that the wives want to escape him.
Does he view them as property?
Yes.
However, when Angharad dies, he wrecks his car
in a gut instinct move to attempt to avoid hitting her.
He clutches her body as a memento
of the life they could have had.
She was his favorite.
And her death is a loss of the unborn child she was carrying.
What about the child?
It's gone awful quiet in there.
Get it out.
Get it out!
In some ways, Joe is a stand in for the old world.
He's a symbol of the evils of religion and consumer culture
that have been decimated in this new world.
But he as a god king is a conduit back to them.
Keays-Byrne's performance as Immortan Joe
is simultaneously tender and operatic.
The charisma and commanding presence behind the mask
is what truly makes the film work.
We know that his boisterous nature
comes from physical weakness, which makes him all the more
compelling.
When asked about how he saw Joe, Hugh Keays-Berne said,
as the Immortan--
I am seeing myself as somebody who is here to raise us all up.
To make things better.
"To give these kids more of a life
by giving them blood from other people that I've caught.
And a breeding program that's actually going to improve us."
And that's what dictators do, isn't it?
In the opening of the film, we find Max devouring a lizard.
This is the new status quo of the world.
Juxtapose that against Joe, who has been hardened by the wastes
but refuses to give into it.
It's taken everything from his body
and driven him to be a cruel and heartless leader.
The only thing he's consumed with now
isn't the day to day struggle of existing
within a post-apocalyptic world.
It's a legacy.
He wants someone to carry on his name.
It's a pursuit consumed purely by ego.
That's what makes Immortan Joe so terrifying.
He's not living in the same world as the rest of us.
He's not struggling with the same needs we all are.
He has all the water he can drink.
He lives in a world fueled by weaponized privilege,
a cosmos of pure emotion that can swing like a pendulum.
Do not become addicted to water.
It will take hold of you.
You will resent its absence.
Immortan Joe is the perfect antithesis to Max.
Max is a simple man with simple needs.
He's just trying to live past the imminent catastrophe
that he's navigating.
Joe is a man who's had grand ambitions,
succeeded, and is now attempting to build a life
after his own imminent demise.
He's not living and fighting for the now.
He's fighting for the future.
One he literally won't even see.
And when people get wrapped up in their own legacy, that's
when empathy for your fellow human beings becomes obscured.
When you start looking at people as resources.
When you start thinking exclusively
of the importance of your own ambition.
From the way that Miller and McCarthy visually build Joe
up over the course of the film to the underlying
deconstructions of patriarchal power,
Immortan Joe is a perfect example
of how creating a compelling villain
can elevate an entire story.
Now that Furiosa is finally in production,
will we eventually see Mad Max 5?
Let us know down in the comments below, and as always,
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like this one.