Rent Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

Taylor-Joy is a worthy successor to Theron, in a mad & bonkers prequel to the Mad Max world - Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga review by TB

After the total lunacy & bonkers imaginative world in Mad Max: Fury Road that sprung from the beautiful & demented mind of George Miller, people were clamouring for the next installment. But the biggest surprise was the incredible newly created character Imperator Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron. Dominating the film, Furiosa was a magnificent character, with shades of Ellen Ripley, Clarice Starling & Sarah Connor, alongside the nuances that Theron added to the mix. So when it was announced that there was to be a prequel, focussing on Furiosa, a lot of people were delighted.

However, this delight turned to anger in some of the fandom when it was announced that Theron would not be returning to the role she made iconic, instead recasting a younger actress. How could, these fans raged, anyone else come close to Charlize's monumental ability & gravitas. Well, Anya Taylor-Joy (along with Alyla Browne as the child Furiosa) answered the call & showed just how incredible they both are in laying the groundwork & developing the character.

Both of them are magnificent. One thing I really liked was that, unlike some films showing the early years of a character, we spend over 40 minutes with Alyla Browne, not a few rushed scenes simply setting the narrative up. In some ways I cannot decide whether I like her or Taylor-Joy more, such is Browne's skill & ability. When Taylor-Joy does take over, the film really kicks into high gear. There is also good work from Tom Burke, as Praetorian Jack, who goes against his orders to help Furiosa to get her revenge. And rounding the craziness off, Chris Hemsworth is Dementus, who kidnaps the young Furiousa & then makes it his mission to rule over the barren & desolate Australian wasteland. Hemsworth really has a ball, chewing scenery for all he's worth, alongside a brutalness which you would expect from a despotic ruler.

But as much as I have talked about the characters, the production values are what made this film for me. Watching it in IMAX with an 11,000 watt sound system, it is BONE SHAKINGLY impactful. Whether it is the scream of the turbocharged engines, or the explosions of the Thundersticks, the sound in this film is unlike anything I have heard for years (only Dunkirk's Spitfire roars come close.) The cinematography & colour palette also sear your eyes, by turns showing you an idyllic, isolated world & a place so inhospitable you would fear spending more than 10 minutes in it.

Alongside all of this, you have the multiple & amazingly staged chases, utilising r-tic lorries, cars & motorbikes to name a few. And every few minutes I kept reminding myself that, although there was obviously post-production CGI in terms of removing wires & polishing the finished footage, everything in front of you was done for real, with the best stunt performers working in films & no digital trickery. In an industry bloated with CGI, it is so rare to have an insistence on everything being done practically. And that is worth it's weight in gold.

And front & center, marshalling this craziness, is George Miller. Despite being nearly 80, he has the energy & mind of a 12 year old, such is the adrenaline that shoots out of the screen at you. Furiosa is a powerhouse of a film, transporting you to a desperate world where the only thing standing between you & death is luck & courage. It is an incredible achievement & I hope that the film's lackluster 1st week box office takings don't mean this is the last we see of the Mad Max world.

Strap in, take a deep breath & enjoy the ride

Action Cinema At It's Best - Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga review by GI

Whilst Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) is a full on and an unrelentling chase film this prequel is a revenge narrative with a gut load of chase set pieces thrown in for good measure. Director George Miller has really nailed this dystopian wasteland world and he has produced here a worthy new film in the series. It's a bold, exciting action film with swift, bloody violence, awesome cinematography of the Australian desert land and also has a really well scripted story. This tells the story of Furiosa who was played in Fury Road by Charlize Theron and in this backstory of her character there's Alyla Browne as the young Furiosa and Anya Taylor-Joy as the older. The film tells of her abduction from her tribe by the narcissistic and psychopathic Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) the leader of a bike gang, who trades her to another tyrannical leader of grotesques, Immortan Joe (Lacey Hulme) where she rises to become a formidable driver of the 'War Rig' under the tutelage of Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke). But she is all the time plotting her revenge on those who have wronged her especially Dementus. With minimum dialogue and extended action sequences fans of the Mad Max series will love this. You do have to have seen Fury Road to understand the story and whilst there's no Max (if you're careful you'll spot that he does put in a small appearance) you do have Tom Burke whose character is a sort of pseudo Max here. I'm a fan so I absolutely delighted in this. The casting is impressive with Browne and Taylor-Joy uncannily resembling each other and Hemsworth is having a blast playing against type as the chief baddie. The longest Mad Max film to date this is a film to watch on a big screen. It's fantastic stuff, action cinema at its best.

Look Out! He's Behind You.....you are going to end up dead, unless you are main character - Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga review by Strovey

If you have watched Mad Max from the start, I think it is fair to say that Fury Road and Furiosa although in the ‘saga’ are not really part of the story. Fury Road was okay for me, a recreation of ‘Mad Max’ using the same name, but in honesty it could have been a different character entirely and that was the weakness of the film. It would have been better to call Fury Road something else and Tom Hardy’s character ‘Bully Bert’ or something.

Fury Road spawned Furiosa the back story to Furiosa the main character in Fury Road. By the time we get this film all pretence at having any connection to the original Mel Gibson Mad Max films is gone. All efforts to create a viable realistic world with rules and limitations have gone. We are clearly in cartoon land here. It might be very violent and full of death and horrible scenes but it is cartoon land. Weapons and fuel and people willing to die are limitless, yes, we have the ‘Bullet Farm’ and ‘Gastown’ and the ‘Citadel’ all supplying what is needed to the endless hordes of death bringers but ten seconds of thinking about it and the story collapses.

So, once you watch Furiosa you must switch your brain off and go into the fantastic and harmless film world it is constructed from. My disappointment is you did not have to do that for the original Mad Max or even the sequel. Things were grounded slightly and you could see it developing this way in some fashion. Fury Road and most certainly Furiosa is based in fantasy and frankly is so silly that the hundreds of never-ending set pieces, chases, explosions and cartoon baddies did nothing for me, and perhaps being an old man with too much nostalgia I wanted the theme, story if you will, of Max Rockatansky. In the original trilogy Thunderdome pulled us away from ‘sensible’ and Fury Road and Furiosa are just extensions of that. Exciting if you like that sort of thing but murderous fantasies in a world with flexible ‘rules’ depending on the character and cartoon villains is not what I am looking for nowadays.

Depending on your viewpoint the cinematography, explosions, costumes and crazy characters are all there and exciting in a way. Well done for what they are. Chris Hemsworth gets more pantomime baddy as the story goes on, I never really took to his character or motivations from the start and Anya Taylor-Joy is very much Charlie-Theron-like, but her and young Alyla Browne prove to be bionic superheroes in their actions. I understand empowering female leads, and it is refreshing, but I find any ‘hero’ who apparently is a top expert at everything they do, including of course driving and shooting that defy the laws of physics, and are indestructible, and clearly feel little pain, very tedious, very quicky. Tom Burke is a sort of ‘goodie’ Australian accent and all, but here he looks like he is dialling it in a tad and he mainly frowns his way through the unlikely set-pieces. Very disappointing.

Considering the setting, the actors, what was happening on the screen, the biggest insult from me was from beginning to end I was bored.

That should never be.