Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – Review

“FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA”

Furiosa has been kicking around in development since Mad Max: Fury Road came out in 2015. The project has been on the constant move, considering it was unclear whether Charlize Theron was going to reprise her role. Finally, the film is out, with Anya Taylor-Joy cast in the titular role, as a younger version of Furiosa.

This film does quite well as a prequel! It basically goes from Furiosa’s childhood all the way up until Mad Max: Fury Road, the credits even showing the start of Fury Road to add to the film’s connection.

That being said, the film doesn’t spend all of its time figuring out how to get to Fury Road, it spends most of its time building up Furiosa’s character. George Miller is the director and it’s very clear how deeply he understands the character.

While this film definitely is going for a more serious tone than the previous, it certainly has some of those hard-hitting emotional moments- which I think a character like Furiosa is good for, especially since now we have a better insight into her backstory.

The film also intends to expand on the politics of the Citadel that was in Fury Road, and as such, most of the cast of the first movie do return to reprise their roles.

The newest face to this film is Chris Hemsworth, who is playing the villain Dementus (the Mad Max films were never known for their subtlety), and I actually think he does a pretty good job playing the villain! I think people who are used to him playing Thor will be taken aback by this turnabout.

Rather similar to Fury Road, the film lets the action tell the story, and there are a lot of times where the film relies on expressions for the actors to get across what is happening. While the action might not be as well-crafted as the previous movie, that’s not to say there aren’t some amazing sequences in this. George Miller is a master of this, and the stunt coordinator and stunt people really deserve a pat on the back, because the sequences are fantastic.

That being said, one thing it does have down against Fury Road is that it’s not as quotable of a movie. There’s no ‘What a lovely day’, ‘Witness me’, or any lines like that, but that’s not the worst thing in the world- not every great film needs to have tons of quotable lines.

I heard some people say that they don’t really like the vehicle design in this one, but I disagree, I really liked them! They have been really well constructed in my opinion.

I’ve been darting around the plot line of this one because I don’t want to give away too much of what happens, other than it’s a build up to why Furiosa is the way she is and the events that led up to Fury Road. I think there’s actually a lot of surprises along the way, and in some senses, I think this film is kind of like watching a documentary about a disaster- you know certain things aren’t going to work out because they have to lead into the next turn of events, but you’re almost begging for it to not be the case.