[Rating: Solid Rock Fist Up]
In Theaters Friday, May 24
Propulsive, immersive, relentless, and filled with the dynamic action that’s made the franchise world famous, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a worthy successor to the greatest film of the 21st century (though not quite its equal). The follow-up to 2015’s blistering, 6-time Academy Award-winning opus by writer/director George Miller, this newest installment in the Australian Wasteland series further develops the characters and deepens the lore peppered throughout its four predecessors. A breathless action-opera coursing with pathos and humanity that always shows and never tells, Furiosa is everything Mad Max and Fury Road fans could have hoped for.
Opening roughly 20 years before the events of the last installment, Furiosa starts with the title character (Alyla Browne) as a pre-teen in the “Green Place,” where she’s harvesting fruit with a friend when the pair come across a group of scavengers. One thing leads to another (no spoilers) and Furiosa finds herself in the possession of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), the leader of a post-apocalyptic biker hoard whose savage brutality is matched only by their lust for resources and recruits. Dementus and his gang try to initiate a coup against Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and his War Boys, yet the fanatical devotion of the Half-Lives is too much to overcome, leading to an uneasy peace between both sides.
Part of this détente involves the surrender of Furiosa to Immortan Joe as a peace offering, leading to a winding path towards War Boy leadership that fans of Fury Road might expect from that film’s opening minutes. The movie jumps ahead the 20-ish years to an adult Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) to fill in the details of this gap, where it’s revealed that she’s a rising star in the War Rig field, along with her mentor, Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke). And while the back half of the film is more or less an info download on Furiosa’s history pre-Fury Road and the resolution of her conflict with Dementus, its greatest accomplishment is how it widens a viewer’s understanding of not just this world, but the people in it (both in this installment and the four others).
Knowing Praetorian Jack helps viewers know Furiosa in ways that just weren’t possible before this entry, just as their understanding about Dementus and his history opens up a universe of context for the shadow that hangs over this whole affair (both figuratively and literally): Mad Max. Miller’s vision of a catastrophic future has always held humanity in a binary death grip pitting the takers against the builders, and Furiosa deepens this lore with another entry in this perpetual struggle. More than a simple extension of the broader story, this fifth franchise offering allows for more context and a depth of understanding about these characters and the world that makes for not just a rollicking good time, but a profound one as well.
Miller’s return to this universe nine years after Fury Road benefits from the last installment’s character, vehicle, wardrobe, and makeup designs, which are only expanded upon and further developed, here. Several actors make a return to reprise roles made iconic almost a decade ago, including Nathan Jones as Rictus Erectus and John Howard as the People Eater, yet the absence of Charlize Theron in the title role is what hits the hardest, and is the only thing holding Furiosa back from equal status with Fury Road. Taylor-Joy is good in the role, to be sure, yet following Theron and the haunting power of her performance in the part is like asking someone to follow Heath Ledger as Joker: it’s just not fair.
A quick Google search shows Theron is just 2 inches taller than the Taylor-Joy, yet it might as well be 20, as the latter never quite imposes her presence in the way the former did with every twitch of the shoulder or pull of a pistol. And again, while the performance is just fine, it makes one all the more appreciative and inspired by the work Theron did in what was truly a generational turn in an instant classic. The fact that Hemsworth is blowing the title character off the screen in every scene they share doesn’t help all that much, either, as the Aussie justifies why all the marketing material has skewed heavily in his direction.
A rich and textured example of thoughtful world-building crossed with complex characters and white-knuckle action set-pieces, Furiosa is the full cinematic package. Hampered only by the imposing legacy of its predecessor, the film leaves no emotional stone unturned in its pursuit of dramatic perfection, leveraging the audience’s understanding and familiarity with this world and these characters against the introduction and expansion of new people and concepts. The first half of a movie double-bill that will be running for decades to come (oh, what a lovely day that will be), Furiosa definitely has it in her to go “epic.”
“Obvious Child” is the debut novel of Warren Cantrell, a film and music critic based out of Seattle, Washington. Mr. Cantrell has covered the Sundance and Seattle International Film Festivals, and provides regular dispatches for Scene-Stealers and The Playlist. Warren holds a B.A. and M.A. in History, and his hobbies include bourbon drinking, novel writing, and full-contact kickboxing.
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