Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Review

From Babe: Pig in the City to Three Thousand Years of Longing via Happy Feet, it’s safe to say George Miller’s filmography is one of the more unhinged out there. That said, despite the delightful eccentricities of the director’s back catalogue, there’s always been one consistent. Mad Max.

Coming out all guns blazing with his down-and-dirty, Mel Gibson-starring 1979 debut, then taking many sequel twists and turns through the decades, before landing on the 2015 reboot, Fury Road, Max Rockatansky has been a mainstay in George Miller’s long and eclectic career since day dot. The man clearly lives and breathes this world, and if he had his way, he’d probably keep making these films from now until forever.

However, after over four decades riding the sour earth of The Wasteland, is there really that much guzzolene left in George Miller’s Mad Max tank?

Snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers, young Furiosa (Alyla Browne/Anya Taylor-Joy) falls into the hands of a great biker horde led by the warlord Dr Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Sweeping through the Wasteland, they come across the Citadel, presided over by Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme). As the two tyrants fight for dominance, Furiosa soon finds herself caught in a treacherous, nonstop battle to return home.

All things considered, it would’ve been so simple for George Miller to take the easy route and turn Furiosa into the exact same film as its predecessor. Fury Road really was that good of a movie, one that had you ready to go again the moment the credits rolled like a rollercoaster junkie waiting for one more ride; however, if this is indeed what you’re expecting (or perhaps even demanding) from Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, prepare to be disappointed, because, for better or worse, Mad Max: Fury Road this film ain’t.

Lacking the relentless, rocket-fuelled boost of Fury Road, Furiosa is an entirely different beast and a far less driven prospect than the 2015 film. While the world, the characters, the aesthetics, and the overall vibes are very familiar, Furiosa’s execution is entirely different.

Oddly for a prequel that markets itself as a singular, character-driven piece, Furiosa is easily more expansive in its approach than Fury Road. If its predecessor gleefully sliced off the tiniest of Mad Max universe slices for us to snack on, Furiosa offers up the whole damn pie.

As a result, the world that rages around Furiosa feels far richer and far more extensive than anything we saw in Fury Road. Introducing us to the big settlements, citadels, and clans of The Wasteland, Furiosa bounces back and forth across the desert at a rate of knots, giving off a sprawling, expansive energy that, in many ways, offers the reverse of what its marketing promises.

More akin to Beyond Thunderdome than Fury Road, Furiosa feels very reminiscent of the original Mad Max films in a rather pleasing and wholly organic way. As it opens itself up to us, there’s a chaotic scrappiness to this film that feels like the natural bridge from George Miller’s original trilogy to where we meet Tom Hardy et al in Fury Road, an approach that feels entirely natural, yet brings with it plenty of issues.

While certainly chaotic with its energy, Fury Road was very much marked by a laser-guided directness that made it such a unique cinematic prospect. It was, for all intents and purposes, a feature-length car chase and made for one ferociously focused watch, something that Furiosa sadly lacks.

Chopped up into chapters and scattered across its desolate landscape, Furiosa severely lacks narrative cohesion, and the result is a scrappy, often disjointed watch. Over two and a half hours, the plot pinballs back and forth across the desert – sometimes with Furiosa herself pushed to the fringes of her own story – and as we take in gang battles, trade negotiations, and villain standoffs over the course of its bulky runtime, the film’s focus and your attention inevitably drift.

No, this isn’t a 150-minute-long car chase, and nor should it have to be to be successful, yet the move to build out the world and expand the rebooted franchise’s horizons certainly muddies its waters. Exposing plot holes and logic gaps, the rambling narrative is perhaps the film’s biggest flaw, however, the bulkier nature of Furiosa’s story does offer as many up sides as down ones.

With more time and space afforded to both us and the characters, there’s a contemplativeness and a more epic, mythical feel to Furiosa than we’ve seen before with this rebooted franchise. Almost biblical in its structure, in amidst the carnage and sprawling insanity, there’s a meditativeness to Furiosa that coaxes you in and allows you to sit in with this world, even as it crumbles around you.

Furiosa’s story is essentially one of revenge, as we follow our protagonist from young abductee to the hard-boiled hero we meet in Fury Road, and while the journey certainly isn’t a focused one, it is a thoroughly absorbing one, with each of the film’s many chapters acting as its own mini tale within the greater narrative.

This grand, sweeping narrative also offers a level of character building that Fury Road could never quite attain. Granted, this character focus is far more spread out than you’d perhaps expect considering it’s a film titled Furiosa, and while Anya Taylor-Joy’s protagonist has a major part to play (as she should), there’s far more going on here.

From a young Immortan Joe to Tom Burke’s Max-like Praetorian Jack, the film’s extended cast of misfits are certainly an interesting bunch and allow for this world to feel a little more lived in than it has done before; however, of the ensemble, Chris Hemsworth is the undoubted standout.

Sporting a face full of prosthetics, a pantomime villain moustache, and a snazzy Jesus-like cloak, Hemsworth’s Dementus is as ridiculous as he is menacing. Clearly relishing the opportunity to play against type, and with his villainy dial turned all the way up to eleven, Hemsworth’s preposterous performance is never less than enthralling throughout and, quite frankly, a huge part of what makes Furiosa tick.

As for the murderer’s row of stooges, scoundrels, survivors, and freaks around Dementus, they are certainly a mixed bag, ranging from the sublime (Alyla Browne’s Young Furiosa and Charlee Fraser as her badass mother) to the ridiculous (it’s extremely hard not to giggle at just how ludicrous every member of Dementus’ gang are) and everything in between (Tom Burke is decent, if a little vanilla, and certainly not a patch on Tom Hardy’s Max). Despite the somewhat erratic nature of their execution, however, the sprawling cast of characters work well to breathe life into this burnt-out husk of a world.

With her name right up there on the title, this film is obviously Furiosa’s and it’s upon Anya Taylor-Joy’s shoulders that its success rests. While Alyla Browne is fantastic as young Furiosa in the film’s opening segments, from the moment Taylor-Joy steps into the roll, Furiosa comes to life and all concerns that she’d be unable to step into Charlize Theron’s sizeable shoes are quashed as the star quickly makes the role her own.

While largely dialogue-less, Taylor-Joy manages to wrestle ownership of the story away from the cast and the shenanigans swirling around her, ensuring that, despite the unfocused nature of the narrative, she owns the screen throughout. It’s no mean feat to take on a role that was made instantly iconic by your predecessor, but she gives it absolutely everything she’s got and, for the most part, succeeds.

Positively launching herself into the role, Taylor-Joy is clearly comfortable with the relative lack of dialogue and the need to let Furiosa’s actions, and the action around her, do the talking. And boy do they talk.

Although it’s not at maximum speed for the duration like Fury Road, Furiosa’s action is no less impressive. Arriving in bursts and waves, the film’s action certainly benefits from not being at full throttle from start to finish, as it makes the absolute most of its relatively restricted screentime, proving that George Miller hasn’t lost any of that Mad Max fire in his belly.

Still very much car chase-focused in its approach, there’s certainly a familiarity to Furiosa’s action, however, this is very much a case of ‘when it’s not broke, don’t fix it’. Leaning all the way into the unhinged madness of this bizarre world, Miller’s direction is impeccable, bringing together intricate and kinetic action choreography, unique, eye-catching character design, and innovative camerawork for a fully immersive, thoroughly absorbing visual experience that proves, even after all these years, there’s plenty more guzzolene left in the Mad Max tank yet.

Without the rocket-fuelled drive of Fury Road, Furiosa feels like an entirely different beast, and while it’s certainly not the nonstop, balls-out adrenaline rush of its predecessor, when it hits it hits. Despite some narrative messiness and a frequent lack of focus, Furiosa remains one hot, mad, wild Wasteland ride.