Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Review
George Miller’s fifth entry into his Post-Apocalyptic Australian franchise. This film being a prequel to his fourth entry Mad Max Fury Road. Allegedly focusing on Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road and Anya Taylor-Joy in this entry.
Though Furiosa’s previous big baddie, Imorton Joe, in Fury Road appears in this prequel, the new Dementus is Furiosa’s adversary in this film. Dementus played by Chris Hemsworth in a departure from his Golden god Thor persona.
It was always going to be hard to live up to Mad Max Fury Road. A film that came 30 years after the last film in the franchise, so there were low expectations for Fury Road.
Here, with as incredible as the fourth film is, expectations were high going into Furiosa. Because comparisons will be inevitable, unfortunately, this film does not stand up to Fury Road.
The performances are still great. Anya has a difficult job of filling the shoes of a character we have already seen portrayed by another actress. The character is quiet and observant, so there was a specific cadence that Anya had to mimic.
Rather her performance is internal. At times her performance is almost too quiet because for what feels like nearly 40 minutes she is relegated to a cage while it becomes the Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) show.
Chris is delicious in this role, and I don’t want to say it’s a delight because his character is truly revolting. However, Chris brings a buzzing energy to the film, which if the film didn’t have would be a slog.
The issue is that this film is called Furiosa, not Dementus. So it honestly kind of sucks to see our main character take a backseat for such a long time. But Dementus’ motor-mouthed freakshow does bring life into the film.
Unsurprisingly, there are some incredible set pieces in this film that breathe wonder back into this adult man’s brain. These action sequences make me wonder how George Miller can do what he does.
There is more CGI in this film than his previous Mad Max film, but it blends well and the CGI does not look cheap. In fact, there are dogs in this film and I am not 100 percent sure if they’re real or CGI.
Overall, I am left with a sense of confusion as to why we needed this movie. I love nothing more than spending time in George Miller’s futuristic wasteland.
However, did we need to see all the horrors Furiosa endured to get to being Imorton Joe’s War Rig Driver, i don’t think so.
We understood her pain when she dropped to her knees and let out that guttural scream in the iconic shot from Miller’s previous film.
At the same time, I want this film to succeed because I want Hollywood to keep giving money to Auetuers to make insane visionary passion projects.
All in all, this is a good film, but not a great one. It’s a little too long and is missing the constant high-octane action. Instead, those high-octane moments are interspersed with moments of true horror and grotesquery that will alienate some.
4/5 Stars
