Gripping performances, vicious action, and smart worldbuilding
We’ve been waiting a while for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Nine years is a long time to wait for any movie, but in this case, Furiosa and Mad Max: Fury Road were originally intended to be shot back-to-back, making the wait feel even more excruciating by comparison. Needless to say, I was very excited for this movie.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen Fury Road, but I’ve still not seen any of the original Mad Max films, despite my intention to do so (I’m sure they’re amazing, but Mel Gibson’s presence is a hurdle I’ve yet to force myself to overcome). So, I come to this movie not as a super-fan of the franchise, but simply excited to see if George Miller can replicate his success with Fury Road, because that movie is, objectively, one of the best ever made.
In many ways, I believe Miller succeeded, but if you go into Furiosa expecting the same level of non-stop action as Fury Road, you might be disappointed. Furiosa is a half-hour longer than Fury Road, so while there’s still more than enough action to gorge on, there’s also slower feel to the piece as a whole as Miller pushes for some breathing room between set pieces.
A Place of Abundance
In a post-apocalyptic world, a young Furiosa (initially Alyla Browne; later Anya Taylor-Joy) is abducted from her verdant home by bikers working for the warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) and forced into a harrowing life of slavery and violence in the sand-blasted Wasteland.
The movie is broken up into distinct chapters, each telling a portion of Furiosa’s story, usually with time-jumps between them. This almost storybook quality meshes well with narration from ‘The History Man’. It adds a mythic quality to the proceedings, like this tale of hardship is being used to inspire a new generation of survivors.
The story extends across the three great strongholds of the Wasteland; the Bullet Farm, Gastown, and The Citadel. We had only seen The Citadel previously in Fury Road, but the other locations were mentioned off-hand, and I’ll admit to a nerdy thrill at seeing these places fully realised on screen. Even before the location tag came on screen, I was all put pointing at the screen shouting ‘Gastown! That’s Gastown!’ because it couldn’t have been anything but.
This fleshing out of the world of Mad Max is fun—Miller has clearly put thought into the economy of the Wasteland. Having such a practical, logical grounding in a movie so off-the-walls at times as Furiosa keeps the film grounded in some form of reality.
Also helping in this regard are the incredibly crunchy action set pieces. In a movie where we have to take characters called ‘Scrotus’ and ‘Rictus Erectus’ seriously, having this level of spectacular in-camera effects offsets some of the more absurd elements of the narrative.
Valhalla
To be clear, these set pieces are what the movie is all about. The action here is clearly on par with that of Fury Road, but it doesn’t try to replicate the frenetic ‘one big action scene’ feeling of the whole movie. There are different kinds of set pieces here; a methodical hunt; an assault on a stronghold; an ambush. There are prolonged chase sequences on big monster trucks too, though; it’s not like Furiosa has forgotten its roots.
From a filmmaking perspective these stunts are beyond impressive, but they wouldn’t matter much if we didn’t care about what was happening to the characters, and this is the area of the movie where it does take a dip in quality compared to Fury Road. It’s not that the writing is bad at all—you’ll know Furiosa inside and out by the time the movie’s over—but it just doesn’t have the strength of a strong character arc backing it.
Furiosa is single-minded in her twin goals of survival and revenge, but she never really changes. Comparing this to the way Max and Furiosa go from enemies to teammates in Fury Road, or even Nux’s transformation (that’s Nicholas Hoult’s character), Furiosa does feel slightly one-note, emotionally.
Her relationship with ‘Praetorian Jack’ (Tom Burke) later in the movie is striking, though. They barely speak to each other, but there’s a level of respect between them that’s all down to the actors. It’s great watching them interact, but again, there’s no emotional catharsis to their relationship. While I do think that’s very much on purpose, the film could’ve done with something to cleanse the emotional palette every now and then.
Chris Hemsworth as Dementus does add a spark of humour to the narrative every now and then—but he’s more ‘deranged funny’ than ‘haha funny’. He’s playing a true comic-book-level villain here, and while there are still Thor-ish elements to his performance that he needs to shake out, I liked him here. Some might have hoped for more backstory or deeper motivations from his character, but I think his simplicity worked well in an already stuffed two-and-a-half-hour movie.
To Be Continued…
At the end of the day though, this is a dazzling, confident work of art. Every frame and edit feels intentional, no scene overstays its welcome, the set pieces are perfectly paced and executed. Miller isn’t just a master of putting incredible stunts on screen in the coolest possible way, but he understands the space of a scene so well that not a single shot of the action, even at its most frenetic, results in even a second of confusion.
The set design is immaculate, the world feels real and lived-in, and the story soars on its own terms without lowering itself to nostalgia bait. Anya Taylor-Joy inhabits the character of Furiosa with all the gravitas that Charlize Theron imbued the character with before, and the high-stakes, character-driven action features some of the best stunts ever put on film.
Simply put, you need to witness Furiosa. Movies like this, helmed by masters of the craft and dripping with style, substance, and raw creativity, are rare. It deserves your support, but more importantly, you deserve to see it.
***
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