Eight years after Mad Max: Fury Road drifted into theaters, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga gives George Miller fans the highly-anticipated next chapter of his apocalyptic saga. Unfortunately, while Furiosa is enjoyable, its glow is less chrome than its predecessor.
Fury Road pushed the titular character into the passenger seat as the audience was introduced to Charlize Theron’s Furiosa, a one-woman army leading a group of slaves into freedom while being chased by the most vicious warlord of the Wastelands. After Fury Road‘s release, Furiosa became a pop culture icon due to Theron’s breathtaking performance and Miller’s unique talent for creating visually impacting characters. So, since the crumbled world of Mad Max is filled with historical gaps, Miller decided to wind the clock backward and explore the rise of Furiosa.
Since Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a prequel, Theron was replaced by Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy as the child and young adult versions of the warrior, respectively. Yet, even if both actresses do a marvelous job of showing their interpretation of Furiosa, by the time the credits roll, we get the uncomfortable feeling that, once again, the titular character is the least important part of the movie.
The success of Fury Road can be partly explained by how much the movie cares about its characters. When we strip Fury Road of all the spectacular action scenes Miller crafts, the film is basically one big car chase. Yet, this simple setting is enough to understand its protagonists’ motivations and follow them through a harrowing journey through a land shattered by human greed. Despite the explosions and ricocheting bullets, Fury Road is a surprisingly intimate story about women rising against oppression and taking their place in the world by force. Furiosa, however, drives in the opposite direction, weaving an epic tale over fifteen years that never pays too much attention to its characters.
As expected, Furiosa follows the warrior as she’s captured as a child and taken away from the Green Place of Many Mothers, a paradisiac oasis in the middle of the Wastelands. From that point on, Furiosa will do whatever she can to survive the erratic desires of two insane warlords. On one side of the battlefield, there’s Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), the main villain of Fury Road. On the other, there’s Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), the power-hungry master of an army of motorcycle marauders. Both men will clash as they try to take control of the Citadel, the imposing settlement carved in stone from where rivers of freshwater flow.
With such an extensive plot, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga aims to fill every gap left behind by Fury Road. Over two hours, we understand how Furiosa rose to the ranks and became Immortan Joe’s Imperator. We also get a thorough explanation of the functioning of the vassal territories of Bullet Farm and Gas Town. Furthermore, while much of the Citadel’s culture is suggested in Fury Road, Furiosa details how and why everything works the way it does.
Contrary to the previous movie, there’s no place for subtlety in Furiosa. Miller keeps his foot on the gas pedal for two and a half hours as he desperately tries to explain as many details as possible of the expansive lore he created for the Mad Max saga. There’s too much happening all the time, and in the end, Furiosa fails to tell a cohesive story.
To fit everything he wants into a single movie, co-writers Miller and Nico Lathouris overused time jumps that can be confusing. Also, while Fury Road holds together without exposition, Furiosa even counts a narrator to explain some key scenes and events. Most of Furiosa’s character development happens off-screen, and some critical aspects of her backstory are ignored in favor of the political game played by Dementus and Immortan Joe. Together, all of this means Furiosa is rarely her movie’s priority.
It’s not only the story that crumbles under the weight of Miller’s ambitions. The epic proportions of the prequel also get in the way of its set pieces. Since Furiosa revolves around battles involving all of Dementus and Immortan Joe’s forces, a massive chunk of the movie is built with CGI. That’s a drastic departure from Fury Road, where practical effects are king.
The change is visible, as few of Furiosa’s action scenes are as thrilling and unnerving as those in Fury Road. Sure, there are a few exceptions – a specific duel against bikers with parachutes is one of the best things Miller ever created. Still, when the story demands city-wide destruction and hundreds of moving pieces, CGI is the only tool to avoid a production going over budget.
For most blockbuster franchises, leaning hard on the computer is not a big issue. But Mad Max movies resist the test of time due to Miller’s dedication to practical effects. Mixing both techniques into the same film makes it clear how inferior CGI is to the collision of real metal, and that only adds to the disappointment born from a convoluted script.
Regarding casting, fans were worried Taylor-Joy would not live up to the high expectations left behind by Theron. She doesn’t, but that’s not exactly her fault. Since there’s so much happening all the time in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the movie lacks moments where Taylor-Joy can truly shine as the Imperator. Secondly, Browne gets a lengthy introduction sequence that establishes her impressive take on the character, which dims Taylor-Joy’s performance by contrast. Finally, Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa often shares the screen with Hemsworth’s Dementus, the show’s true star.
While Miller has sold the story of Furiosa as a prequel about the titular character, it quickly becomes clear that the movie is most concerned about Dementus and his riders. As new characters in the franchise, the Biker Horde gets a lot of runtime to explain their practices and goals – Dementus, in particular. Hemsworth is mesmerizing as the unstable warlord, showing a range that few roles allowed him to.
Dementus is a complete departure from the funny and heroic characters Hemsworth is used to play, from the MCU to Netflix’s Extraction. So, it’s surprising how well he makes the warlord an unpredictable and terrifying force in Miller’s post-apocalyptic playground. Of course, that’s another element of Furiosa that hinders the protagonist’s story.
There’s also something to be said about Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’s obsession with answering questions no one has ever raised. Part of what makes the Mad Max universe so enticing is how Miller has managed to build a version of the post-apocalypse where culture itself was destroyed, only to be put together again in weird and unexpected ways. Explaining every aspect of Immortan Joe’s society makes it lose part of its charm and removes the benefit of catching new and exciting details with each new watch.
Although it might not sound like it. Furiosa: A Mad Max story is highly entertaining. Miller is still ahead of one of the movie industry’s most unique IPs, and there’s nothing like it on the market. Furiosa also takes everything Miller learned with Fury Road to deliver stunning images of sand, fire, and machines, proving his competence as a director.
If Furiosa existed in a vacuum, it would probably be better received. Nevertheless, it comes on the heels of Fury Road, Miller’s magnum opus. Because of that, we cannot help but lament that the prequel is messy, bloated, and fails to give Furiosa the character-focused journey she deserves.
