Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Director George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road stands as one of the best films of this century. 

A bombastic epic with a lean story and constant action that is thrilling and hilarious in nearly every propulsive moment. 

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is not that nor is it necessarily trying to recreate that. 

It’s dips into the well but is also concerned (as a prequel must be) with giving you the origin of its titular character. 

How did she get that way? How did she get that injury? What happened to her hair? 

Prequels rob filmmaker of one of their biggest weapons — the threat of death for the main character. You might argue that heroes never die in action movies but if you watched Fury Road you could believe all the good guys were gonna bite it at any moment. 

And even if you don’t think a character will die you can still wonder how it ends. But we know where almost all of the characters in Furiosa will be when the credits roll. 

They’ll have to be there because Fury Road awaits them. 

As the pattern emerged this dimmed my enjoyment slightly. However, this movie is still another helping of Fury Road madness. 

What that means is unbelievable action scenes filmed in spectacular fashion. Also, can we please film every night scene the way Miller does? He tints it blue and you can still see everything you need to see while also knowing it is night. Simple effective and unlikely to frustrate you when you watch this 20 times on a cheap TV. 

Here’s what’s undeniable though Chris Hemsworth deserves an Oscar nomination. His work creates, in Dementus, perhaps the best villain of this decade. Vain, brash, conniving and usually a step ahead of his enemies he is a joy to watch. 

I’m not kidding about that Oscar nom. This is up there with Heath Ledger’s iconic Joker. There are a million ways a story this ridiculous can go wrong but Hemsworth becomes the fun center of a wild story. 

Two amazing actresses step into the role Charlize Theron originated in Fury Road. 

Alyla Brown plays Furiosa as a child (and an hour of the movie) while Anna Taylor Joy plays her as a young woman. Both display the strength of the character and she remains the strong silent type. 

The movie even has a Mad Max type ally for Taylor-Joy with a game Tom Burke playing one of her wasteland teachers. 

Fury Road was one long chase scene. This can’t be that, instead it’s a series of vignettes that takes us to the doorstep of the next movie. 

However, there are plenty of sequences that are as thrilling as Fury Road. If you wanted more, this is more. 

And I’ll tell you something I found interesting, as the movie came out there was some talk about how few lines Furiosa has in this movie. 

Miller even had a quote about how dialogue slows things down in action movies. I was offended when Villeneuve said something similar (but more insulting to writers) as Dune Part 2 was released. 

But I am not insulted here. Villeneuve was adapting a book and owed everything he had to the writer who dreamed it up. Miller is making action extravaganzas that follow in the tradition of westerns. 

But the whole argument was moot, cause this thing ends on a pretty good conversation.

Also, most Western heroes don’t talk. They ride into glory.