Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

The Mad Max series is no stranger to long gaps between movies.  No one expected to see director and writer George Miller return to his post-apocalyptic world until Mad Max: Fury Road suddenly was announced and released 30 years after Mad Max Beyond ThunderDome.  During the intervening time the original star of Mad Max, Mel Gibson, had found himself disgraced due to numerous antisemitic and sexist statements, while Miller seemed more interested in movies about talking pigs and dancing penguins.

Since Miller's return to the world of Mad Max Fury Road has been praised as one of the best action films ever made.  A big part of that was, though there was CGI added after filming, a majority of the movie was made the way the previous films were.  That meant practical makeup and special effects and actual stunts involving a number of customized vehicles.  It also featured Tom Hardy taking over for Gibson who, even without his issues, was too old to play the part, which Miller now saw as a mythical figure rather than the stories following a specific timeline.  While wildly popular Warner Bros. caused delays in an immediate follow-up by trying to get out of paying Miller certain monies he was owed from Fury Road.  Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga was always meant to follow on the heels of Fury Road, just not another long gap, this time of 9 years.  

It has to be remembered that, despite all the good press and word of mouth Fury Road received, it lost its opening weekend at the box office to the fluffy musical comedy Pitch Perfect 2.  This was before COVID-19 affected the whole theater-going experience, so even though Miller was able to raise about 280 million dollars to make Furiosa - a good portion granted by the Australian government, as he was able to return to his original filming locations instead of Namibia - that it was ridiculous to think that the movie, no matter how well it did, was going to make it back.  It is now considered one of the biggest flops of 2024, if not of all time, despite the fact that it, like its predecessor, has received near universal praise.  

As a child Furiosa (Alyla Browne) is taken from the Green Place once members of a biker horde ruled by a warlord named Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) catch her disabling their bikes.  Her mother Mary (Charlee Fraser) pursues them to make sure the location of the Green Place is not revealed.  When she is killed Furiosa becomes the property of Dementus, but is soon sold to Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) in exchange for Dementus not blowing up Gas Town, which he has captured after failing to conquer the Citadel.  Furiosa is sent to Joe's harem to be a future wife.  When one of his sons, Rictus Erectus (Nathan Jones), tries to have his own way with her she escapes and pretends to be a boy, growing up doing dangerous jobs at the Citadel. 

Years later the grown Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) is discovered to be a woman when defending a war rig driven by Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke).  Jack decides to teach her what she needs to know, agreeing to let her leave with no questions asked if she decides.  She herself becomes a praetorian, hoping for the chance of revenge against Dementus, who is preparing to once again try to take the Citadel from Immortan Joe.  She manages to warn Joe of what Dementus is up to, but the results are still a disastrous war which takes its toll on both sides - a situation in which Furiosa hopes she will be able to get her revenge. 

One thing that immediately concerned fans of Mad Max: Fury Road was, instead of just using computer effects to enhance the action, it appeared that Furiosa was going to look like a Marvel film.  The scenes shown in the early trailers were filmed in front of a green screen and looked it.  There is also too much of a tendency to use sped-up film in some action sequences, something that always looked horrible in older movies and looks even more out of place in a modern production.

Some of this I can forgive as 1979 was a long time ago and Miller is no longer the young doctor turned director able to go out in the middle of nowhere and stage spectacular stunts with almost no budget.  Instead, he is in his late 70s and, I'm sure, feeling it.  There is still quite a lot of location filming and live stunts being done in Furiosa, but much of what was done was safer and easier to do in a studio.  It is still upsetting to see the amount of shortcuts taken, but unlike a Marvel or DC film there is more to this movie than just its CGI. 

Although this is Furiosa's story in many ways she is treated in the same mythological sense as Max is.  Neither Gibson nor Hardy had many lines of dialogue in the first four films, instead being tasked with physical acting in order to bring the character to life.  Anya Taylor-Joy faced the same challenge, as Furiosa has few lines throughout the running time of the film, pretending to be mute for a good portion of it.  Miller is still one of the few directors willing to do things most wouldn't dare do, such as cover the faces of his actors at times where it would make sense they would be.  Taylor-Joy did most of her own stunts as well and, despite all the talk about CGI, spent a long time sitting in the war rig out in the middle of the Outback to capture the whole chase scene that happens about halfway through the movie. 

Tom Burke is a standout as Praetorian Jack, giving Furiosa a mentor and love interest without going through all the usual motions that would slow a movie like this down.  Lachy Hulme fills in well for the late Hugh Keays-Byrne as Immortan Joe, who has a diminished role in this as the focus more on Furiosa's desire to take revenge on Dementus.  Chris Hemsworth gets to play against type as a villain and he does it well and, like most good guys and villains in the Mad Max series, has a bit more depth than one would expect, even if he uses his own tragedies to excuse his behavior.  Many of the other villains from Fury Road return as well as a number that were in the accompanying video game that came out at the time. 

The best thing about Furiosa - and the one thing too many movies forget about these days - is the story.  I have heard some try to explain that the movie failed due to the fact that no one cares about Furiosa, only about Max, but we already know Max's backstory.  Furiosa's is quite interesting and Miller, ever striving to be different, does not make her a central figure in the war between Immortan Joe and Dementus but, instead, a wild card acting from her own need for revenge.  Though she may be central to Fury Road in this movie she is merely another player in a long game and none of the major players give her more than a second thought except when she is useful to them.  There is no chosen one dynamic and nothing that makes her stand out as many others are just as capable as her.  She just does what she needs to survive and is a bit luckier than many. 

This is the longest movie in the series, running two and a half hours, and focuses more on the world of the Wasteland as well as on telling the story it needs to.  It still has great action sequences but is not a long chase sequence like Fury Road.  For those thinking it will clear up anything with the timeline about what happened between Beyond ThunderDome and Fury Road, this is probably the most one is going to get, and like the rest of the movies one gets the feeling that when it is being told decades, or even a century, after the events.  The one thing that can be said is that with every movie the story gets more and more interesting.  Also, if Mad Max: Wasteland does get made, I'm sure it will still provide more questions than answers. 

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

Time: 148 minutes

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Lachy Hulme, Alyla Browne

Director: George Miller