‘Furiosa’ is another lovely day in George Miller’s wasteland

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Rev up your engines, because it’s time to go mad!

Synopsis

Set many years before the events of Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga tells the backstory of Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy), who, as a child, was kidnapped and forced to watch her mother be executed at the hands of warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth).

Furiosa is able to escape Dementus’ grasp, making it her life’s goal to get revenge. To do so, she clandestinely infiltrates warlord Immortan Joe’s (Lachy Hulme) clan, rising through his ranks to help him conquer the wasteland and take down Dementus.

My thoughts

Mad Max: Fury Road is the kind of movie that, simply put, should have never been as great as it turned out to be. It was a 30-year later sequel with a tumultuous 17-year-long production history, made by original franchise mastermind George Miller, who was now in his mid-60s and coming off kid’s films like Babe and Happy Feet. Everything seemed to be going against it, yet it turned out to be not just one of the best films of the 2010’s, but arguably the greatest action film ever made.

Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa was the big standout star and fan favorite of Fury Road, but she was also the favorite of Miller and his co-writer Nick Lathouris. Before Fury Road was even filmed, they concocted an entire backstory for Furiosa to be explored in a future film.

Not only would this give us more information into what made Furiosa who she is in Fury Road, but it also fills in more of the mad world she inhabits. I thought Theron’s Furiosa was awesome, but I wasn’t too enthusiastic about Miller’s next foray into the Mad Max universe being a prequel about her character (maybe it’s just the Tom Hardy fanboy in me).

Shifting gears

Miller himself said the idea from Fury Road stemmed from him wondering if a car chase could last for an entire movie, and he executed that concept flawlessly. It was an action film that was constantly moving, with the plot, themes, and character details brilliantly intertwined with all of the breakneck carnage.

Furiosa is less “Go, go, go!” than Fury Road, following a far more traditional narrative this time around. Since it’s a prequel exploring Furiosa and how the wasteland we see in Fury Road came to be, there’s far more plot and dense worldbuilding than what we got before. Instead of non-stop action, we get more dialogue, more characters, and more post-apocalyptic politics to drive the story forward.

At 148 minutes, it’s by far the longest Mad Max film, and you can definitely feel its length at times. There are a lot of plot elements and characters that are set up, and you can tell there was a lot of editing that went on in post-production, especially since we have two editors this time around, with Miller’s editor (and wife) Margaret Sixel being paired up with Eliot Knapman to cut the film.

It’s all still very engaging, but due to the denser story, longer timeline, and choppier editing, Furiosa does somewhat lack the kinetic energy that made films like Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and Fury Road such classics. The first half contains numerous fades to black, time jumps, and some repetitive bits that make it all feel a little bit disjointed.

Preventing prequel pitfalls

In terms of plot, structure, pacing, and action, if Fury Road was basically a modern version of The Road Warrior, then Furiosa feels almost like a modern version of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (although far less lame).

I wasn’t really sure what direction Miller was going to take a Furiosa prequel in, but I respect him and Lathouris for not just making the same movie again. While I’m sure another giant chase movie would have been great, the attempt to do something different is much appreciated.

What’s nice is that Miller and Lathouris put in their best effort to avoid all of your typical prequel tropes that often plague them. Sure, we get to know how Furiosa gets her mechanical arm, gets into the good graces of Immortan Joe, and all that, but it tells its own story that stands completely on its own two feet.

You don’t need to have seen Fury Road to enjoy this story, and even if you have, it’s one of those rare prequels where, no matter what’s happening, you can still feel the tension and serious stakes of the story. Sure, you know Furiosa will survive and where she’ll eventually end up, but how she got there and how the other characters influence that is just as compelling.

Waste(land) management

While there’s definitely more depth and plot to be found in Furiosa compared to your usual Mad Max fare, that doesn’t mean that Miller skimps on the action. There’s still plenty of that to be found here, it’s just that the plot necessitates less of it to tell its story.

In Miller’s films, action scenes don’t just happen for action’s sake. They need to actually serve the characters and their journey in some way, and that still applies in Furiosa. Since the first hour is spent on Furiosa as a child (Alyla Brown), it’s not until she becomes an adult that we get into what you might call the “Mad Max goods.”

When Miller delivers those goods to you, it’s clear the man hasn’t lost a step since Fury Road. Like before, all of the action is clear as day, expertly staged and choreographed by Miller and his cinematographer Simon Duggan to never let the audience lose sight of what’s happening on screen.

Fury Road was such an insane and dangerous film to make, it’s no surprise that Miller and stunt coordinator Guy Norris (no relation, sadly) didn’t take things even further than they did before. With less risk-taking and relying more on some iffy-looking digital effects, it wasn’t as gritty, but the passion was still there.

The epic feats, stunts, and explosions never quite achieve the jaw-dropping heights of Fury Road, but that doesn’t mean the action isn’t exciting to watch and doesn’t pack some decent surprises. Nobody makes action sequences quite like madman George Miller and his crazy crew, that’s for sure.

All mad… no Max!

This is the first film in the franchise to not feature the titular Max, and while that may seem odd at first, Miller and his crew prove that you don’t particularly need Max for this world to remain mad.

There is the character Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), one of Immortan Joe’s trusted war rig drivers. He somewhat fills the role of a Max surrogate here, an experienced driver who knows the wasteland like the back of his hand, surviving for years on his own skills and instincts.

He ends up passing these skills down to Furiosa, while also providing her some hope that society and her fellow man aren’t entirely bad. The heart and spirit of the Mad Max films is kept intact, with themes of redemption, revenge, and keeping your humanity intact in a world that’s mostly losing it.

While Anya Taylor-Joy may not look all that similar to Charlize Theron if you put them side by side, she more than embodies the character of Furiosa. It’s an impressive performance that more than carries the second half of the film, even if she barely speaks any dialogue.

Just like Max in the other films, though, she doesn’t really need to speak that much dialogue. Miller is one of those masterful visual storytellers who can give you everything you need to know about a character without a word ever being said.

You really just need the right actor to pull that off, and Anya Taylor-Joy was more than ready for the task. Like Tom Hardy in Fury Road, she’s absolutely ferocious in the lead role, using her unique body language and insanely expressive eyes to convey a whole range of emotions.

Like Theron before her, she’s just as convincing in the action scenes, influencing her performance with the same type of intense ferocity that Theron did in Fury Road. Taylor-Joy is a terrific actress who will no doubt continue to star in more dramatic roles, but she’s now also proven herself to be quite the action star.

Chris Hemsworth is the big scene stealer here, which is definitely by design, being written as the type of bad guy who just loves himself and wants everybody to know it. I mean, I kind of loved him. The dude had a motorized chariot!

He’s the best kind of bad guy who you just love to hate. We get Hemsworth’s trademark charm and charisma here, but it’s a different brand than his other characters like Thor. He can be hilariously fun to watch in one moment, but it is absolutely terrifying in the next.

Out of all of the Mad Max antagonists, he definitely seems to have the most going for him, and Hemsworth was clearly having the time of his life. Dementus is a despicable, eccentric character, but you can still sense the humanity buried within all the darkness inside.

Final verdict

If you go into Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga expecting it to be as rockin’ and rollin’ as Fury Road, then you may walk out disappointed. While everything looks familiar on the surface, it’s a completely different beast of a movie that’s operating in a lower gear than Mad Max usually runs at.

This isn’t a bad thing, because if you go into Furiosa wanting more exploration into the crazy Mad Max world and the Furiosa character, all done with George Miller’s signature direction and style, then it’s more than worth your time to take another road trip out into the wasteland.

Miller said that the script is completed and he’s ready to go for another Mad Max adventure. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another decade to experience another lovely day.

My rating: 9/10

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is currently playing in theaters nationwide.

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