Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
dir. George Miller
Rated: R
image: ©2024 Warner Bros. Pictures
The only thing that kept me from enjoying Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga more than I initially did was the unsettling feeling that our real-world conditions are getting closer and closer to those that cause the societal collapse in George Miller’s epic, dystopian, decades-spanning Mad Max universe.
In the original Mad Max, released in 1979, Australian society begins to come undone due mainly to oil shortages. This was undoubtedly Miller’s reaction to the global 1973 oil crisis, which drove prices up as supply became distressingly low. While watching Miller’s blood-and-diesel action opus, audiences of the late 1970s could hear echoes of the gas crisis they had experienced only a few years prior.
The opening of Mad Max: Fury Road – Miller’s triumphant 2015 return to his bonkers cinematic vision –delivers the voices of newscasters (often with an echoey effect attached) who tell us about water shortages following gas shortages, which caused the erosion of civil society into brutal warlord tribes that roam the wastes looking for treasure and victims.
The echoes of the past that we hear in the opening minutes of Furiosa, which tell us why human society is but a memory, feel unsettlingly familiar. Pandemic. Runaway climate disaster and ecocide caused by human carbon emissions. Political instability and oppression. Gas wars. Water wars. Societal collapse. The first few minutes of the movie feel more like documentary than action spectacle. Here in the real world, our planet is dying and we’re literally running out of water; it feels like we’re all waiting for the proverbial dam to break.
What a fun and exciting topic for an escapist action blockbuster, right?
Turns out, in George Miller’s capable hands, that is right. Weighed down as it is with a maximalist approach to story, the fifth installment in the Mad Max franchise doesn’t quite reach the dizzying Pure Cinema heights of Fury Road.
It’s still an unbelievable ride from a sui generis filmmaker. At almost 80 years old, Miller is proving he’s still near the top of his game and that, with several future Mad Max projects in the works, he’s not interested in slowing down any time soon.
The main focus of Furiosa is the titular character’s origin story. We met the fierce and ferocious Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road. She is the tip of the spear in the cruel, tyrannical warlord Immortan Joe’s supply convoy, which helps the power-mad Joe hold his tiny kingdom, known as The Citadel, under his merciless control. Furiosa drives his War Rig, a fortified tanker truck, through the wastelands to bring back guzzolene from Gastown and ammunition from the Bullet Farm, two other fiefdoms with which Joe has crucial trade deals.
At the start of Furiosa, we find our hero as a young girl. She is living in the oasis we only heard her speak of in Fury Road, the Green Place of Many Mothers, a dot of green in the sea of sand surrounding it. One day, Furiosa and her sister, Valkyrie, spot a group of motorcycle-riding raiders. This gang has stopped to investigate the land of bounty they have discovered. During her attempt to sabotage their vehicles, Furiosa is captured by the gang, which sets off the first in a series of high-octane and higher adrenaline chase sequences when her mother, Mary, tries to rescue her.
The small band deliver the girl to their leader, the Biker Horde warlord known as Dementus. This vicious ruler takes a shine to young Furiosa; he declares that she will be his adoptive daughter, something of a replacement for Dementus’s own family, which he tragically lost years ago.
There’s too much plot to satisfyingly describe here. We see Furiosa’s transfer from Dementus to Immortan Joe; her education in traversing the Fury Road supply run under the tutelage of Praetorian Jack, her predecessor and eventual love interest; her obsession with punishing Dementus for murdering her mother and upending her life. It’s a sprawling, gargantuan story – Furiosa clocks in at two minutes shy of 2.5 hours – meant to serve as the connective tissue for the visceral, exhilarating chase sequences for which Miller and his Mad Max sandbox are most famous.
There’s one personality in Furiosa that is as big and mesmerizing as any of the thrillingly executed car chases contained within it. That personality is Chris Hemsworth – Thor himself – as Dementus, ruler of the Biker Horde. With a ridiculously oversized prosthetic nose that’s almost as scenery-chewing as Hemsworth’s performance itself, the actor is almost unrecognizable, especially when you add in the beard, the wig, and the cranked-to-11 Aussie accent.
In an interview, the Australian actor credited the genesis for his nasally delivery to his grandfather and a flock of seagulls:
“My grandfather had a very ‘How ya going?’ nasality. I wanted there to be something intrusive and abrupt about how the character spoke. I was in the park with my kids and heard seagulls and I thought, ‘They are obnoxious animals’ and that spurred on the inspiration.”
The preposterous accent – before reading the above quote, I would have told you that part of Hemsworth’s inspiration might well have been Americans’ ridiculous imitation of Paul Hogan’s famous line delivery in Crocodile Dundee: “That’s not a knife. THAT’S a knife!” – signaled the way for an element of Furiosa with which I struggled during my screening.
I could sense that both Hemsworth and Miller wanted laughs from this brutal buffoon, but with everything else surrounding Dementus, the attempt at comedy initially fell flat for me. The audience at the advance screening I attended didn’t alleviate the feeling, either. Virtually no one laughed at Hemsworth’s vainglorious monster.
Upon further reflection, I suspect that my reaction (and possibly the audience’s) was due to our expectations, set by Fury Road. Any laughs in that film are sacrificed on the altar of the incredible, relentless action sequences that drive it. I walked into Furiosa ready for blood and chrome; I walked out with a new appreciation for Chris Hemsworth’s comedic skills.
The actor hasn’t been this funny on screen since his hilarious take on the male bimbo (mimbo) trope in the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters. This time, the comedy is subtler (which, if you’ve seen the performance, you’ll know why it feels odd to describe it as such), and, now that I know what I’m in for, I’m positive that I’ll enjoy Dementus more on a second go around.
Bridging the gap between the comedy and the action is the ridiculous(ly awesome) motorcycle chariot that Dementus rides to lead his clan into action. The war lord has three bikes rigged together, turning the handlebars using reins attached to them. Motorcycle chariot races were apparently a thing in the 1920s and ‘30s. Miller has resurrected them for his postapocalyptic vision.
The action set pieces within Furiosa are every bit as stunning as the ones found in Fury Road, but they feel disconnected to each other by comparison. In the earlier picture – and I realize that this was a bit of legerdemain on Miller’s part – each bit of asphalt action led seamlessly into the next, creating the sensation of one long, kinetic fever dream. This time out, each of Miller’s meticulously crafted set pieces feel much more like stand-alone works of art: The opening motorcycle chase; The trojan horse attack on Gastown; the spectacular assault on the Bullet Farm. Each one held my attention and I was enthralled any time the motors came roaring to life, but they don’t cohere as satisfyingly as the ones in Fury Road.
Anya Taylor-Joy upholds her predecessor’s quiet, stoic energy as the titular Furiosa. As originated by Charlize Theron in Fury Road, the character holds her own with Max. They are two relentless figures who will do anything to get what they want. Without Mr. Rockatansky to play off of, Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa becomes this film’s Max, and she is every bit as mysterious and driven as both Theron as the older version of the character and Tom Hardy as Max (and, come to think of it, Mel Gibson as Max, too). It’s a crucial victory that Taylor-Joy commands our attention as much as she does, at least when Hemsworth isn’t stealing the movie from her and everyone else around him.
I felt the CGI effects in Furiosa much more than I did in Fury Road. That’s not to suggest that computer trickery isn’t present in the latter or that there isn’t a healthy amount of viscerally satisfying practical effects in the former. (I was delighted when Miller upped the ante on attack strategies during the chase sequences. In Furiosa, the villains go fully airborne. Parasailers – attached to their attack vehicles and wearing some unique gear on their feet to aid in takeoff and landing – take to the sky in a way the Pole Cats from Fury Road could only dream about.)
Tom Holkenborg (aka Junkie XL) provides a score for Furiosa that isn’t anywhere near as propulsive or insistent as what he offered up for Fury Road. It’s hard to be too disappointed, though, when what’s on screen is so compelling.
We may not have gotten to the point of water wars and war rigs quite yet, but one stray comment during Furiosa left me cold. Early in the film, when the young girl who will become Immortan Joe’s fiercest warrior is turned over to Dementus, she is given some advice: “Make yourself invaluable, and Dementus will look after you.” I’ve heard a variation on that same bromide from well-meaning people at every job I’ve ever had. It’s an insidious piece of advice because it hides the masked motivation under most human interactions: You’re only worth something as long as you can produce for others; when you can’t, you become worthless.
George Miller continues to explore that most base aspect of the human condition against the biggest, most bonkers canvases he can find.
Why it got 4 stars:
- It’s a tick below Mad Max: Fury Road, but Furiosa will undoubtedly reign as the best action blockbuster of the year. All hail Dementus.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- Miller makes a misstep in the final seconds of the movie, which contains a montage of scenes from Fury Road. It’s continuing the story we’ve just seen concluded, and it feels superfluous.
- As in Fury Road, each chase scene contains an overabundance of things to look at during the madness. Miller excels at filling up a frame.
- Because it’s so kinetic and character names can be easily missed, here’s a collection of the best monikers from Furiosa: The History Man, The People Eater (that’s the guy who obsessively plays with his nipples), The Organic Mechanic (I personally think this is how we should refer to all physicians from this point forward), Rictus Erectus, Scrotus, Chumbucket.
- Someone out there will correct me if I’m wrong, but this time out featured the most intense scenes of characters having to fix vehicles while they’re in motion of any Mad Max entry so far. Each time it happens is exhilarating.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
I saw this at an advance promotional screening. It was a packed house that seemed into it. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is currently playing in wide theatrical release.
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