George Miller has spent nearly 15 years trying to get a new Mad Max movie off the ground, which may explain why he wastes no time feeding patient fans of his franchise right into a buzzsaw. He knows that a decade and a half is enough foreplay—it’s time to cut right to the climax.

Souped-up motorcycles soar over Nitro-fueled muscle cars, Nitro-fueled muscle cars crash into tricked-out oil trucks, and all of them explode into glorious fireballs.

Fury Road not only captures the same Molotov-cocktail craziness of Miller’s masterpiece, 1981’s The Road Warrior—it’s also a surprisingly hypercaffeinated film for a director in his fifth decade behind the camera.

When you get past Miller’s orgy of loco action sequences—and they’re so good, you may not need to—the story is pretty thin. Max, Furiosa, and their band of gypsies, tramps, and thieves (including a gonzo Nicholas Hoult) basically race from Point A to Point B, realize Point B isn’t what they hoped, and race back to Point A.

What made the first Mad Max such a future-shock classic wasn’t just its jittery, overcranked action served up with a sick smile, but also its metaphorical depth.

The new film is, I’m sorry to say, just another summer action film (albeit a gorgeously shot one). In the end, Mad Max’s road may be furious, but it doesn’t really lead anywhere.

And for 120 minutes, that climax doesn’t let up. Mad Max: Fury Road may be the first Tantric action flick...will love it.