Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

3.5/4

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a thoroughly entertaining movie that doesn’t quite reach the kinetic energy of the previous film. Mad Max: Fury Road was a well-sustained action sequence from beginning to end, but here there is more room for introspection. Director George Miller doesn’t try to top what he had achieved with Fury Road and I cannot say I blame him. That movie represents the height of his craft as an action director and with his latest he attempts to do something different.
The previous Mad Max entries were more or less one-offs that could be viewed in any order. They all exist on a floating timeline and each creates its own world and aesthetics. Furiosa, however, doesn’t look at all that different in style from Fury Road and, indeed, this should more deservedly be considered a companion piece. It expands upon the world Fury Road created, revisiting much of same locations and characters. But, this time with no Mad Max. The absence is not greatly missed and it goes to show that this world is interesting enough to tell stories in without him. Instead, the film is a prequel exploring the early life of Imperator Furiosa, originally played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road. Miller, to avoid overusing de-aging techniques recasts the role with the lovely, but much less charismatic Anya Taylor-Joy.

We first meet Furiosa as a young girl (Alyla Browne) who is kidnapped from her home by raiders. When her mother (Charlee Fraser) rescues her they are caught and Furiosa’s mom is killed by the bandits’ leader, Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Hemsworth’s performance is one of the biggest draws in the picture. He is affably wicked, playing the role like a soft-headed child turned bully. He throws deadly tantrums when he doesn’t get his way, clutching a teddy bear like a totem throughout. He strikes me as someone who in their childhood was given too much sugar and not enough spankings.
Dementus strikes a deal with warlord Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) that leaves him in control of Gastown, one of three major ramshackle cities in the wasteland. Part of the exchange involves handing over Furiosa to Immortan, who is to join his harem when she comes of age. She, understandably, wants no part of this and she flees. She disguises herself as a warboy (one of Immortan’s foot soldiers) and pretends to be mute.
Following a quick transition in time (a first in the series) Furiosa is older and one of Immortan’s most trusted enforcers. In the sequences where we see her grow from child to adult George Miller makes impressive use of AI tools to blend Anya Taylor-Joy’s face with Browne’s. He is a director who understands the limits of CGI and, while the film is the most CGI-laden of the Mad Max films, he doesn’t become overambitious. The use of AI here is subtle enough to escape notice and far more convincing than what we have seen in the last Indiana Jones or The Mandalorian. He keeps her body and head shrouded completely in these scenes allowing only the face to be seen resulting in none of the usual unnatural movements that characterize AI tools most of the time.
Furiosa befriends a war-rig driver named Jack (Tom Burke) who shares in her dream of escaping from Immortan Joe’s Citadel. He teaches her everything she knows setting her up for her role as war-rig driver in Fury Road. If Jack is somewhat lacking in personality it can be forgiven. He is introduced to the audience as incentive and encouragement to Furiosa, but obviously meant to die before the story is over. Is that a spoiler? Perhaps, but he is not in the previous film so…
A pathway for revenge against Dementus soon opens up when Immortan declares war on him for going rogue. The climax is not quite the action spectacle that graced Fury Road’s final act, but the film has a satisfying conclusion that gives surprisingly meaningful insight on the psychology of revenge. Her dialogue with Dementus at the end airs out intelligently what vengeance can achieve and what it cannot. He tells her that she can do him in slowly or quickly, but it won’t matter either way. His death is only merciful oblivion and faced with his lack of remorse there can be no pain that she can inflict that will justly match her own. Dementus, like any good Mad Max villain, is absurd and over-the-top. But in his final moments when he is weak and vulnerable there is something more menacing in his words. He gives full expression to how frustrating seeking revenge really is. His tolerance for physical pain is high and there is no room in his heart for seeing the error of his ways. He can be killed. But he is untouchable. The eventual choice she makes at the end may not be understood by everyone, but they are her own to make and moral judgment is left to the viewer.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is an engaging revenge story packed with action and impressive special effects. But, I wanted more from Taylor-Joy’s performance. She is given very little dialogue throughout the picture which grates against the more talkative portrayal of her in Fury Road. Especially given that the film ends exactly where Fury Road begins, showing unnecessary clips from that movie during the end credits. The recap is gimmicky and only insinuates a dependence on the other film that I don’t believe is there. This is only a mild gripe, and my main issue remains the disappointing use of Furiosa as a character. She is not very interesting, which is frustrating given Anya Taylor-Joy’s talent as a performer. The best written character by far is Dementus which diversifies Chris Hemsworth from his more typical heroic roles. He is a great deal of fun to watch and he is my favorite of the many villains that have come and gone in the Mad Max series. He is, of course, ridiculous, but underlying his absurdity is a genuine menace.

The movie is good, but mostly for the reasons that made Fury Road good. There are a number of impressive shots, but nothing transformative enough to elevate it to greatness. I would recommend the picture, but with the added warning that it is not the same experience as watching Fury Road.
Miller has said he intends to make at least one more Mad Max film after this one and I am optimistic. Furiosa shows he has not lost his touch and I am hopeful that the next will be another elevation in quality we had seen before. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga as a side story is an excellent diversion while we wait. But, I expect the next to be much better.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

4/4 stars

The Mad Max series continues to improve with each passing entry. The first film was little more than a bit of roughneck ozploitation and lacked the sense of good fun that characterized the sequels. As the films have come along director George Miller hones his skill framing sustained sequences of nonstop action and in Fury Road he has brought his craft to perfection.

Mad Max: Fury Road is essentially a two hour chase picture; simply plotted and finely choreographed. Nonstop action can be quite dull in a lot of movies, but this movie has such brilliantly tuned pacing that my investment in its story never became fatigued. It takes a fine hand to make movies like this so good and this is one of the best of its kind; proudly standing among Terminator 2 or Aliens as one of the greatest action movies ever made.

The movie sees Mad Max (played by Tom Hardy replacing Mel Gibson) run afoul of a gang of bandits who take him prisoner to their Citadel, a massive canyon fortress ruled by an asthmatic albino warlord named Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). The ruler keeps his minions in religious awe of him and he controls access to a large reservoir of water by which he holds his subjects under his thumb. When his favored Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) defects and smuggles his harem of “breeders” out of the citadel Max is dragged along as Immortan goes after her to get them back. While on the chase Max is handcuffed to one of Immortan’s feral soldiers named Nux (Nicholas Hoult). In the ensuing battle Max escapes his captors along with Nux as an unwanted addition. He makes contact with the fleeing Furiosa and their relationship opens with mistrust and mismatched priorities, but then develops into a friendship and an enjoined quest to bring Immortan’s escaping harem to a place of safety. The girls (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zoe Kravitz, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, and Courtney Eaton) are a sensual lot of macguffins whose combination of little personality and minimal attire makes them offset whatever feminist and anti-slavery themes the movie is trying to convey. There is something puerile about fantasies of “grateful” rescued women in distress that appeals to the audience, and I feel attempting to find social commentary in how these women are presented here would be dishonest. The girls are eye-candy and little else; and the “people are not property” message is best found elsewhere. If this be a serious flaw, it is a flaw that is participated in by its actresses and its being a testosterone-fueled action romp. And perhaps it can be forgiven. Fury Road makes up for it with a tight camaraderie between its three central heroes and a highly entertaining narrative that marries road pictures (an under-acknowledged genre) with riveting special effects and action. The film is more escapist than philosophical and works perfectly on that level.

The car chase which makes up the majority of the film’s runtime is a spectacle of blood, dust, chrome, booming voices, and good old-fashioned grit. Barely a scene goes by without burning rubber and blowing sand. It’s an aggressive escapade of rust, gasoline, battered metal, and roaring engines. The film is high on bravado and violent energy. It’s post-nuke desert landscape creates a visually arresting palette of reds and yellows while its kinetic pace never stoops to repetition. The use of color in Fury Road is essential to its aesthetic and I can only look at the black-and-white version that was released as a meritless gimmick that fails to understand the proper uses of black-and-white and what it is for. This movie along with Logan (another great picture bastardized with a black-and white version) was made with color in mind and is best seen that way.

Tom Hardy, in a role requiring minimal dialogue, fills Max’s shoes well enough; but he doesn’t quite have the charismatic appeal of Gibson and Miller made the right choice in making Furiosa the film’s main perspective throughout the majority of it. Hardy is left to do the physical gruntwork of the Max character without talking too much to make the recast uncomfortably stand out.
While I would have been happy to see Mel Gibson take on the role again as an older Max, Fury Road still remains, to my mind, the best of the Mad Max series. Miller tried with the first one and succeeded with the next two. With this one, he perfected.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

3/4 stars

When Max (Mel Gibson) enters the Thunderdome he is introduced to the roaring crowd as “the man with no name.”
It suits.
Like the seminal Man with No Name trilogy that made Clint Eastwood famous the Mad Max series presents a singular hero against a singular backdrop without the need for any ongoing continuity. Their adventures can be viewed in any order with no appreciable loss of comprehension. Like tall tales of gods and folk heroes told around a fire, which story is chosen on any given day does not matter a great deal. By being introduced in this way what director George Miller is trying to tell the audience is that Australia now has its own modern day Eastwood.

A more striking allusion in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is made to Peter Pan and his Lost Boys of Neverland. In the film Max encounters a group of feral children who yearn for unclear memories of the past before the apocalyptic wastelands became their home. And like Wendy Darling in Peter Pan, Max must face off against the children’s naivete, delusions, and mistrust before leading them in a fight for freedom against some roguish grownups.

The movie begins with Max coming to a thuggish frontier city called Bartertown where resides the titular Thunderdome, a crude gladiator arena which sits in the center of town. What he finds there is an ongoing power struggle between a charismatic dominatrix named Auntie Entity (played by Tina Turner) and Master Blaster, an odd couple consisting of a child-minded brute (Blaster) and the brains of their unit (Master) who is a dwarf that rides Blaster’s back.
A deal is struck between Auntie and Max that in exchange for resources he must fight and kill Blaster in the Thunderdome. He agrees and what follows is one of the more memorable action set pieces of the film.
The Thunderdome is taller than it is wide and its combatants are attached to suspending harnesses that allow them to bounce around the arena grabbing a variety of weapons attached to the dome. The environment is not flashy, but the fight is exciting.
When Max discovers that Blaster has the mind of a child he refuses to kill him and reveals the deal to Master. Enraged, Auntie has Max sent out into the desert to die. There he is rescued by a clan of young children who mistake him for a legendary captain who featured heavily into their myths. He denies the messianic role and at first wants little to do with the group. But soon he takes on a protective paternal role and leads them to the film’s climax in a faceoff against Auntie Entity and the villains of Bartertown.

Sadly the relationship between Max and the kids makes for one of the weakest points of the film and lacks proper development. Much is rushed and I wanted to see more. Some more time getting acquainted with the group and scenes of Max preparing them for the battle ahead would have gone a long way and the absence of such scenes robbed me of emotional investment. I would have preferred the Lost Boys motif better explored, but pacing and marketable film length are often at odds when crafting an action picture and the movie suffers from prioritizing its action scenes.
The action scenes, however, are quite good if not quite up to the standards of Mad Max 2. The previous film featured a sustained chase scene in the desert that is replicated here, but not as effectively. I felt that I had seen much of this before in the last film; Tina Turner’s gravitas and the good-natured fun of the whole thing being the chief highlight of the final sequence.

I genuinely liked Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, but I wanted more of it.