She’s mad as hell and as vengeful as they come— a woman of few words with the red hot fire of revenge in her eyes. She is Furiosa, and her origin story is one of utter insanity, epic proportions and outrageous grit that matches her unrelenting environment. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is the newest installment in the ‘Mad Max Universe’ by director George Miller. The film played at the 77th Cannes Film Festival this year to a roar of approval from critics and early screening-attendees. This prequel to Fury Road holds its own as a satisfying fable of sorts that is so outlandish in its execution and originality. It’s a downright entrancing 148 minutes of pure, gnarly glee.
Furiosa’s structure is wildly different from Fury Road, which is an intentional and genius decision on Miller’s part. Instead of a two hour, nonstop action extravaganza spanning three days, Furiosa is split up into five chapters with cryptic titles that span 15 years of Furiosa’s life. We follow a young Furiosa (portrayed by Alyla Brown) as she’s taken from her mother Mary Jo Bassa (Charlee Fraser) as well as the sacred Green Place of Many Mothers by the Biker Horde, and brought to warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth).
From there, Immortan Joe shows face, and stuck between feuding sources of evil, she endures a multitude of horrors and hardships which play an acute part in molding her into a reclusive, despondent mute. Young Furiosa has matured into nothing more than a survivor and a fighter — a shell of who she could have been, had she not been taken from the Green Place all those years ago.
The film takes us right up to where we meet her in her infamous War Rig in Fury Road, smuggling the Five Wives out of the Citadel. There are a multitude of fade transitions to signify the passage of time, and although the film itself moves at a generally good pace, it’s an obvious effort for Miller to slow it down and focus on world building and lore this time around, and it pays off in leaps and bounds.
Miller and co-writer Nick Lathouris tone the Wasteland War Boy chases via soldered together Frankenstein-esque vehicles down a notch (but only a notch). This makes room for more narrative beats, which are endlessly interesting in their own right. This time spent on this somewhat of an origin parable creates more empathy for Furiosa and her situation — we can’t help but root for her even more now.
Anya Taylor-Joy is spectacular as the infamous Imperator. And despite having behemoth shoes to fill after Charlize Theron’s own depiction of the beloved character back in 2015, she tackles this feat with grace and tenacity. Taylor-Joy gives a type of performance we’ve never seen from her before, and with only 30 lines of dialogue to work with throughout the entire feature, she makes every word count. When she’s not speaking, her eyes tell all — from fury, anguish and determination, she gives a masterclass in the beauty of subtly. Chris Hemsworth is utterly perfect as Dr. Dementus — a villainous caricature that’s just the right mix of amusingly bizarre and downright evil.
The addictive energy of Furiosa is near full throttle as Fury Road with gasp-inducing scenes and new War Rig inventions and visuals from Miller that are ridiculously perfect, they can only be described as “Mad Max”. Cinematographer Simon Duggan captures the Wasteland and our beloved characters in a sort of apocalyptic beauty, providing immersive footage worthy of IMAX.
The infamous Mad Max theme comes to play once again in the absolute perfect moments with a heart-thumping score from Tom Holkenborg and fantastic sound design by James Ashton. There is a very apparent heavier use of CGI throughout Furiosa in comparison to Fury Road, (some of it even a bit janky at times) which may deter some people, but the film itself is such a lively treat, it’s more than easy to look past.
Furiosa may not exceed the outlandish perfection of its predecessor, but in all honesty, it’s highly doubtful anyone was expecting it to. Mad Max: Fury Road is widely revered and famously considered to be one of the best action movies of all time. The sheer fact that this film is more than an honorable edition to the franchise and a triumphant prequel at that, is near achieving the impossible already. It propels its own nearly 50 year old universe to new heights while simultaneously elevating its antecedent, Fury Road to a new level. This in and of itself is characteristic of precisely how bad-ass a picture Furiosa truly is.
