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Tom Hardy has gone mad.

The rising British star of Bronson, Locke and last month’s Child 44 steps into Mel Gibson’s dusty-leather boots for a misguided reboot of the classic Australian future-thriller.

The result is noisy, explosive and visually spectacular but depressingly hollow.

The effects are terrific but this Mad Max reboot gives far, far too little screentime to the fearsome road warrior, with original writer-director George Miller more intent on creating a mix-tape of past glories.

There are car chases, sawn-off shotguns and no end of tricked-out cars with skulls on their grilles but where is our leather-clad anti-hero?

It’s been 36 years since Miller’s original Mad Max (essentially Death Wish on wheels) roared into cinemas, making Gibson a star and becoming one of the most profitable movies ever, grossing close to $100million on a budget of just $200,000.

The writer-director upped the stakes with Mad Max 2 (1981), a sequel both electrifying and audacious, crafting a world where you could get crucified and then set on fire for a can of petrol.

We shouldn’t mention the misfiring follow-up, 1985’s Beyond Thunderdome.

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This time we return to the near future where Max, sprung from imprisonment from a gang of albino terrorists, hooks up with Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to drive a lorry to the coast in defiance of the masked Immortan.

As Max comes aboard, he discovers six scantily-clad models hiding in the back.

Amid a spurt of diesel and dust, they’re chased all the way to safety.

This may be Theron’s film - and she’s fine - but Max just doesn’t appear half enough.

As for the plot, concerning a truckload of supermodels (including Rosie Huntington-Whitely) hoping to be delivered from a sandy, post-apocalyptic hell-on-earth, it looks very much like Miller throwing sound and fury where a plot should be.