George Miller returns to the wasteland with better world-building and more vehicular mayhem in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
One of the few complaints leveled against Mad Max: Fury Road when it came out nine years ago was that its title character was practically a nonfactor. For all the implied badassery that came with a post-apocalyptic warrior wearing a leather jacket and driving a hot rod, it seemed insane to make said hero barely speak. But that actually factors into one of the many positives of Fury Road: it had so much tight world-building, outstanding characters, unique story, and awe-inspiring action that its main character could just be a pawn in the game of the end of the world.
It appears we have that same situation with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, with writer/director/proud Aussie George Miller reveling in his trademark vehicular madness without breaking the farewell of his Mad leading man. Instead, he tells the story of the character who was arguably the real protagonist of Fury Road: Furiosa, who we first meet as a young girl (Alyla Brown) in the mythological Green Place with the few warrior mothers left in the world.
“…promise me you’ll find your way home.”
The action begins when a gang of marauders kidnaps Furiosa and gives her to Dr. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), who sees Furiosa as a means to find the Green Place and pillage it for all it’s worth. But Furiosa stays silent through all the death, starvation, and madness Dementus causes as he and his motorcycle army trek through the desert. They eventually meet Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and his legion of War Boys, who trade control of Gas Town for Furiosa as a means to prevent an uprising and add to Joe’s harem of wives/birthers. Our heroine not only evades that fate but stays undercover as a servant and grows up to be a silent soldier (Anya Taylor-Joy) plotting her escape home and revenge against Dementus.
Fair warning: if you’re going into Furiosa expecting the same breathless pacing and near-constant stream of action that Fury Road offered, you might be disappointed…at first. The 148-minute runtime of Furiosa is largely dedicated to more world-building and the ever-increasing craftiness of our titular heroine. All that time leaves Miller and co-writer Nick Lathouris (who also co-wrote Fury Road) plenty of room to expand how the end of the world works and what that does to the people still living in it.
“My mother was magnificent.”
Everyone steals the scraps left from the dead for themselves without a second thought of pity, remorse, or humanity. The only bond people have with each other is that of gasoline, bullets, and desperate savagery. That makes for some of the best world-building in a movie since the recent Planet of the Apes reboot and maybe even Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. It also makes Furiosa’s journey all the more interesting to watch. Does she still have the capacity to nurture hope in this burnt world? And what made her stay with the tyrannical Immortan Joe for so many years?
“This is her odyssey.”
Don’t be scared off by all this talk of establishing universes and character development, because Furiosa is still a helluva ride. Miller and his stunt team still know how to craft crazy vehicular chaos with pitch-perfect execution. The sound editing makes every gunshot hit hard and there’s just enough gore splattered along the desert to let the violence sink in.
Flamethrowers have rarely looked more beautiful through the lens of cinematographer Simon Duggan (The Great Gatsby, Hacksaw Ridge), while Fury Road costume designer Jenny Beavan returns to make more striking designs from the junkyards of racers and bandits. The editing also has fever-dream levels of intensity, whether it be lush shots of the stars backing the endless dunes or the trademark zooms into faces of intensity. All of it expertly conducted by Miller who has enough confidence in the subtleties of his script to let his actors and environments be as over-the-top as a circus act without losing any grit.
“The darkest of angels.”
Case in point: Chris Hemsworth. As if the name Dementus wasn’t enough, the once and forever God of Thunder cranks it to 11 and revels in the fumes of the apocalypse. He plays Dementus like Jack Sparrow if he did CrossFit, a mad pirate king who conquers first and thinks later. Whereas Immortan Joe represented the abusive standards of the patriarchy in Fury Road, Dementus is more of a clueless byproduct of what the madness of the apocalypse took away from him. “THERE IS NO HOPE,” he screams, not as a maniacal brag but a hurt belief he clings to out of sheer desperation.
But does this scenery-chewing completely block out our title character as she did to Max in Fury Road? In a way, yes. But as it was for Max in Fury Road, Furiosa is not meant to be the entire focus of Furiosa. While Miller and co. further define the world around Furiosa, they never break the focus in her face as she studies the madness around her as she waits for just the right times in the story to act. She may not have many lines, but whenever she makes a move closer to her freedom it gives the movie the right bursts of energy at the right time. Due credit not only to Anya Taylor-Joy, whose petite face and hypnotic stare pierce through the dirt and grime of the Mad Max universe, but also to Alyla Browne as the younger Furiosa further informing her rise to glory.
The bottom line.
The most fascinating thing about Furiosa is that it both is and isn’t a proper follow-up to Mad Max: Fury Road. In a visual and thematic sense, it falls in line with Miller’s last romp in the wild wasteland of fire and blood. But in a storytelling sense, Furiosa subverts the expectations of relentless energy and constant momentum one would think a movie preceding Fury Road would have. Not only does this make Furiosa an effective prequel to Fury Road (basically a good stretch before an epic sprint), but it lets the movie stand out as its own adventure and actually feel more epic than the last entry in the franchise.
If Fury Road cemented Mad Max as the mysterious drifter in a good campfire story, Furiosa builds its heroine to be like the conquering knight in a fairy tale. Whatever Miller wants to do next with the franchise (or with any project for that matter), it’s clear that the 79-year-old still has the gas and the gumption to make blockbusters with sharp precision and daring creativity. When you’ve got characters named Rictus and Scrotus, you kinda have to go full-throttle.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga revs into theaters Friday, May 24. You can watch the trailer here.
Images Courtesy of Warner Bros. Read more articles by Jon Winkler here.
REVIEW RATING
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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - 8/10
8/10
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