Director: George Miller
Writers: George Miller, Nick Lathouris
Stars: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke
Synopsis: The origin story of renegade warrior Furiosa before her encounter and teamup with Mad Max.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga begins with the same voices which open Mad Max: Fury Road, sans Max. The audience is welcomed back to the Wasteland before seeing it. The voice over instead speaks of Imperator Furiosa – who, like Mad Max before her, has reached the status of legend. Furiosa is the story of a child of the Vuvalini of Many Mothers – daughter of Mary Jabassa (Charlee Fraser), Protector of The Green Place.
Furiosa (Alyla Browne) is reaching for a peach with young Valkyrie when she hears voices. Men from a motorcycle horde have invaded the protected oasis. Furiosa attempts to cut the gas lines of their bikes but is caught. From that moment, Furiosa’s home is a paradise lost but never forgotten.
George Miller throws the gauntlet down immediately. Mary Jabassa gives chase felling Furiosa’s lack witted kidnappers with the assistance of a sniper’s eye, her black thumb skills (mechanic), and Furiosa’s training. The physical health of the full life Vuvalini has transferred to quick thinking and problem solving. Furiosa might be small but she’s mighty. Mary is, as Furiosa recalls in time, magnificent.
The child is taken to the scavenger warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, as you have never seen him before). Dementus is a cruel grifter who uses ultra-violence to get his way. Unable to cajole the location of the place of abundance out of Furiosa, his method turns to crucifixion and motorcycle quartering. Furiosa is made to witness the death of her mother. Within three days, Furiosa is caged and muzzled, listening with rage to Dementus’ idiotic ramblings and taking in lessons from the History Man with his tattooed skin and position as ersatz historian.
History and myth are as important to Miller and co-scribe Nicos Lathouris as guzzolene and V8 engines. Pageantry and symbolism rub shoulders with broken war-addled and fallout brains of the mostly male survivors. While Dementus sees himself as a politician, Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) sees himself as a God. A War Boy tells Dementus about The Citadel. They spy a chance for supremacy Dementus threatens Immortan Joe and his sons Rictus Erectus (Nathan James), Scrotus (Josh Helmen), and Immortan Joe’s human calculator The People Eater (John Howard). Dementus’ attempt to start an uprising among the wretched, treadmill rats, and other denizens of the citadel is almost immediately quelled by the zealotry of the War Boys and War Pups faithful to Immortan Joe.
To avoid an all out war which he will lose as War Boys kamikaze into his followers, Dementus is forced to give up young Furiosa to the breeding program and make a play for Gas Town using the kind of subterfuge that only works once. Furiosa, in the space of a few years, sees the very worst of Dementus and his motorcycle pulled chariot, and Immortan Joe with his sickly breeding program in which he is trying to sire a healthy heir (she narrowly avoids being raped by Rictus Erectus which leads her to cut her hair and live as a boy).
Time passes and the silent Furiosa blends in as a Black Thumb and Dogman – working her way onto the War Rig driven by Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke doing a passable Australian accent). Furiosa (now played by Anya Taylor-Joy in a near seamless transition from Browne and in an uncannily believable embodiment of the woman who will become Charlize Theron) survives a fraught road battle on a run to Gas Town where the convoy is attacked by other warlords who were double-crossed by Dementus. For the first time, we encounter a woman whose steel is forged through a mixture of hope and vengeance.
Miller’s prequel moves between being some of the most powerful and potent road warrior imagery put to screen, and some of the most bloated. The Gas Town sequence on Fury Road is a distillation of the high-octane action direction of Miller at his most accomplished. Sean Duggan’s camerawork and the editing by Margaret Sixel and Eliot Knapman are almost seamless here. The stunt work with parachutes, grappling, guns, gas, bombs, and metal piercing flesh is balletic. All of which highlights how uneven the rest of the film is marrying the, at times, patently ugly CGI with practical effects and action.
Chris Hemsworth is giving the performance of his lifetime. A wheedling sadist whose insanity is comparable to Wez (Vernon Wells in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior). As Dementus he has the lion’s share of the dialogue, and he relishes every second of every broad ocker line. Anya Taylor-Joy slips into the Road Warrior protagonist skin so perfectly it is astonishing. The template which works best for any Max Rockatansky or Wasteland legend (which Furiosa is) is intense silence punctuated with lines that have weight.
The runtime of almost two-and-a-half hours is indulgent and threatens to make the audience disengage. Considering the barebones nature of the plot, action is king. Yet the action becomes at times repetitive, and the visual language muddied by raggedy and uneven effects and second unit direction. Furiosa could lose half an hour and be a compact action spectacle.
No one quite knew what to expect of Mad Max: Fury Road when it appeared in 2015 so Miller’s grand risk had huge rewards. Furiosa suffers from somewhat diminishing returns in trying to up the ante. Nevertheless, Miller’s spectacle is transcendent when he has the pedal to the metal and the messy seams of Furiosa don’t undo the whole. Solid second gear action that could go faster to be more furious.
