Furiosa - A Mad Max Saga

The Fast And
The Furiosa

Furiosa - A Mad Max Saga
Directed by George Miller
Australia/USA 2024
Warner Brothers
UK Theatrical Print

I’m not that enamoured with either the Mad Max movies or of George Miller, truth be told. I thought Mad Max was okay  (reviewed by me here), Mad Max 2 - The Road Warrior was the standout film (reviewed by me here), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome was... um... what it was, I guess (reviewed by me here) and then the much lauded Fury Road was, honestly, pretty dull and uninspiring (reviewed by me here).

So I really wasn’t expecting much from this one, Furiosa - A Mad Max Saga, which is a prequel to Fury Road and tells the back story of the character played by Charlize Theron in the previous movie, Imperator Furiosa. The real reason I decided to go see this one is because one of my favourite new actresses, Anya Taylor-Joy, is playing a younger version of Furiosa (and also, as it turns out, an even younger actress who’s absolutely brilliant in this called Alyla Browne, for the first hour). It also has Chris Hemsworth playing a villain here too (which I’ve seen him do before and he tends to do villains pretty well... this one isn’t his most evil, I reckon).

So, yeah, I was only here for the Joy of Anya Taylor but, I have to say, this new movie is a lot less duller and much more watchable, up to a point, than the last movie.

There are just more interesting story beats and ideas in this one, it seems to me... although probably a lot less action... which is fine in itself but, the main problem with this is the way the action is structured because, those action set pieces are pretty good but, the climax of the movie in terms of that specific kind of action spectacle comes maybe a half hour before the end. The big ‘war’ which we are expecting to happen is mostly just a quick montage before we get to see Furiosa go and continue her quest for vengeance. So the end 30 minutes or so, felt a little less like a climax and more of an afterthought it seemed to me.

Okay, about that ending which, literally leads into just a minute or so before the action of the last film, even going as far as to play scenes from Fury Road over the end credits... well, it’s pretty lame. I’m talking about the specific vengeance meted out to Hemsworth’s character by Furiosa at the end... it’s a kind of grim, fantasy vengeance and I’ve got no problem with that sort of far fetched penchant for whimsy thrown up into a movie... bring it on... it’s just that it seemed both tonally off and not that well integrated into the spirit of the post-apocalyptic Mad Max films, it seemed to me... so I left on a low rather than a high, it has to be said.

Anya Taylor-Joy is absolutely brilliant in this as Furiosa and she has said it’s the most gruelling shoot she’s ever done... which I guess would be the case if you do most of your own stunts (hanging underneath big, scary vehicles etc) as she seems to have done here. She’s always great in whatever she does, though but, I didn’t necessarily think she was the best casting choice for the film. Not in terms of a bad ass actress who can look believable in the role... she’s got that covered in spades. But I think she is a slight mis-match for Charlize Theron’s portrayal of the older version of the character in Fury Road. Theron played it mostly emotionless but calm and measured... Taylor-Joy has so much personality and energy crackling in every performance she gives that she can’t help but look way more intense than who the character turns out to be in the former film. I guess you could argue the years and experiences have mellowed the character somewhat, later in life but, for me that was a stretch.

Other than that, Tom Holkenborg’s score (aka Junkie XL) to the film seems more listenable than the score for the last but, alas, there’s no CD release as yet so I guess I won’t be able to listen to it at all. Which is a shame. When will these companies learn what people want? Ban downloads and give us proper discs please. Music shouldn’t be a transient experience.

But no, Furiosa is a fairly good and entertaining film and I’m sure most of you, like I did when I saw they’d added the words A Mad Max Saga to the title, will be expecting Max to somehow turn up in a scene where he and Furiosa don’t actually meet. Yep, it’s in there... welcome to Jacob Tomuri as the third actor to play Max in the films, after Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy. He strikes a good pose, for sure (which is all you will get but, I’m guessing you would have guessed that).

One last thing though... if you want to see a George Miller movie that really is a masterpiece (an underseen masterpiece, at that) then check out his last film, the absolutely brilliant Three Thousand Years Of Longing (reviewed by me here) because, that truly was ‘cinema’!