Furiosa (2024 | Australia | 148 minutes | George Miller)
Ten years after introducing Charlize Theron’s iconic Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller once again revisits the post-apocalyptic Australia he created back in 1979. The latest entry fills in fifteen years of backstory for the title war rig driver-turned-liberator by way of five chapters of audacious set pieces. As fan service, it’s exceptional. As stunt coordination, it’s reliably jaw dropping spectacle. But in terms of storytelling, it’s about as essential as a Doof Warrior and a flame-throwing electric guitar on a desert-racing military convoy. Which is to say that even if you don’t absolutely need it, there’s nothing wrong with making sure that you’re having a good time.
Over a generous two and a half hours, we’ll get a few answers about how Furiosa came to be the grotesque Immortan Joe’s most reliable war rig driver, losing an arm and getting a haircut along the way. The film opens with her kidnap from the Edenic fabled “green place”, a hidden matriarchal land of abundance amid the continent’s ecological (and mental) collapse. It’s the film’s best sequence, a mother’s lean and efficient overnight chase across the desert in attempt to save her child from marauders. Valiant, but of course unsuccessful, her mother’s torturous failure is burned into young Furiosa’s eyes and the oath that she makes to return home is seared into her reason for being. About those eye: the the film’s first hour, the character is played by Ally Browne, albeit with Anya Taylor Joy’s distinctive eyes and facial features layered over with the assistance of AI. The effect is uncanny.
Subsequent chapters find Furiosa traveling as something between a pet and daughter to a new warlord character, Dementus. Chris Hemsworth in a prosthetic nose, ostentatious beard, parachute cape, and a teddy bear accenting his muscle-flattering leather getup. He’s possibly the chattiest characters in the Mad Max universe. The arrival of Furiosa first intrigues him from the point of view of new place to pillage, later she’s something of a daughter figure showpiece, kept caged in a menagerie along with his dogs and an old man who still remembers how to read, dishing out “word burgers” on command. The continent has essentially become a series of ever-desperate Burning Man camps, with hordes of idiot followers clinging to clown kings through some mix of survival, entertainment, and force of will. Dementus approaches his leadership with a populist bent, accented by showmanship, and occasional flashes of punitive violence. He leads an ever-growing motorcycle gang of scavengers who pillage the red desert wasteland, consuming resources, and improvising more ambitious schemes to fill the empty longing for vengeance left by a collapsed society while keeping the gang together.
It’s one of these gambits that brings us to the re-introduction of us Immortan Joe, his enormous adult idiot failsons (Scrotus and Erectus), a nipple twiddling general, devoted white-painted war boys, beautiful captive wives, and the vast resources that bind the struggling underclass to the Citadel. Dementus’s attempts to spark an overthrow, claim pieces of the warlord’s trade ecosystem (Bullet Town, Gas Farm) for himself, and stage a war of desperation form the central backbone of the film. They also coincide with Furiosa’s biography: coming to live in the Citadel as a trade piece future wife, escaping into a life in the mechanical operation, and rising to the status of trusted Imperator status. Each chapter plays like a mission with thrilling escapes and brilliantly staged action sequences, be they high-speed sieges or stunningly legible battles. All with the trademark zooms, lens pushes and pulls, and a fascination with the weathered faces of the wasteland.
These high-octane, multi-vehicle, flamethrowing, open world set pieces are the film’s raison d’être and alone merit the experience of a vast screen and enveloping sound presentation. Miller and production designer Colin Gibson are relentlessly inventive in populating this world with visual delights: gleaming tankers, parasailing assailants, motorcycle chariots. Jenny Beavan returns with exceptionally lived-in costumes, highlighting the apocalyptic need for function alongside the necessity of flair to keep the charismatic leaders distinctive and their followers entertained by the myth. Action designer Guy Norris wrangles more than a dozen major stunt sequences with hundreds of extras over months of filming. The results are reliably thrilling. Even as the film relies on more CGI than its predecessor, the breakneck sequence at the heart of the film reportedly took 78 days over nine months to film. It functions as cinematic eye candy as well as the main emotional turning point for Anya Taylor Joy’s claim on the role and her character’s subsequent arc, no easy task.
It’s in this section of the film that we meet the only other new character, a mentor driver, played by Tom Burke. It’s a brilliant stroke of casting, particularly to the privileged few who were introduced to him as the very bad news boyfriend in The Souvenir. Here, he’s among the few inhabitants of this world with a trace of humanity, a highly component cog in Joe’s operation, and someone who both sees Furiosa’s potential and gives her a reason to stay within the Citadel’s ecosystem to climb its ranks.
Franchise mythology has it that Miller wrote these chapters in Furiosa’s story before ever filming Fury Road. Having watched this prequel a couple of times now, I think I envy anyone who gets to watch Furiosa before ever seeing Fury Road. Together, I have no doubt that the two films would tell a complete and epic tale in a very satisfying fashion. I always argue that good stories can’t be spoiled, so knowing where Furiosa’s ultimately going shouldn’t take anything away from finding out how she gets there. Still, through all of the astonishing visual delights and gripping sequences, there’s a pervasive sense of safety.
The feeling of watching from a vantage point of insulated plot armor might be related to a viewer’s knowledge of who’ll survive or what beats have to happen. It could also be that the filmmaking — and the film’s fate — has become more assured over the passing decades since the originals were made. Fury Road was famously a maniacal triumph with a now-storied history of production difficulties, on set turmoil, rescue in the heroically fast-paced edit, and undeniably breathtaking practical effects. It’s among the best action movies of the century, making for an impossibly high bar for any successor to even attempt to match, let alone surpass.
The real thorn in the movie’s side is that the plot is driving toward the most exciting chapter without introducing many new questions or providing new answers. (Lest this feel like an unfair comparison, the end credits literally feature a highlights reel from Fury Road, an astonishingly brave but possibly foolhardy choice). As good as Anya Taylor Joy is in picking up the role — and she is very good — Charlize Theron’s performance in Fury Road is a towering achievement that left few mysteries. Even without knowing the superficial details of the kidnapping, amputation, and haircut, she brought so much depth and knowledge to creating a character so richly-conceived that no answers are required beyond the richly-lived experience shown on the screen. If anything, Hemsworth’s Dementus, a scene-stealer unlike anyone we’ve ever seen in this world who verbalizes who so many others left buried, who gets the most complete arc. He captures the spotlight in an asymmetric revenge narrative which becomes the primary motivation of this long setup. It’s almost enough to distract from how the major mystery of the Furiosa character — why this powerful character stayed for so long in service to such a grotesque power broker — is handled either far more subtly or too superficially to make the necessary impact.
So even as its prequel succeeds, I couldn’t help but feel that it was stuck in the shadow of its predecessor: far more controlled in its execution yet constrained in its scope. There’s nothing wrong with delighting in the film’s madness — and there are plenty of treats for kids who grew up idolizing monster trucks and hot wheels cars, fantasizing about how they’d fare off-road, hurtling through vast sandy terrain, or crushing each other. Even if it sometimes feels like a sidequest with guardrails, Miller is a bit like his tyrant leaders in understanding that if you’re committing to spend hours with him sprinting through the desperate red sand desert of a collapsed civilization, it has to be entertaining. On that campaign promise, he definitely delivers.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga arrives in theaters on Memorial Day Weekend. For those who care about the best format, it plays Pacific Science Center’s IMAX through June 5th.
Header Image courtesy Warner Bros.