PREMISE
The origin story of renegade warrior Furiosa before her encounter and partnership with Mad Max.
THE GOOD STUFF
HEMSWORTH- What a fun performance this is. He’s proven that he can do villains before, and each time he’s played a villain he’s done it in a different way. In spiderhead he was quite restrained, in bad times at El Royale he was charismatic and seductive, and in this movie, he is wildly unhinged. For some reason, he has the most screen time in this film by a mile, and nary a minute is wasted. There is a sizable chunk of this movie where he is not in it, and his absence is felt.
Before this movie, I was absolutely sure that the best performance that he had ever given was in a movie called Rush back in 2013. That is no longer the case. This is the best he’s ever been.
Anya Taylor-Joy & Ayla Browne– The biggest question for me going into this movie was if Taylor-Joy could really capture the ferocity of this character in the same fashion that Charlize Theron did in mad Max: fury road. And although Taylor-Joy has been very good to flat-out amazing in everything she’s done up until this point, those are some big shoes to fill. And happily enough, she fills those shoes very well. The most impressive stuff that she does is when her character isn’t speaking which is for the first 20 or so minutes that she’s on screen. Even when there’s a mask covering half her face, the eyes say it all. There never seems to be a point where you do not sense what her emotional state is.
Also deserving massive kudos for their work in this film is Browne who plays the younger version of Furiosa for the first hour of the film. This is the best child performance in a banner year of fantastic child performances. There’s no distinctive contrast in intensity with Furiosa from either of these actresses.
THE ACTION- George Miller is the master of the car chase. There are no less than FIVE really elaborate car chase sequences in this film, and every one of them tests the absolute limit of premium formatted theaters. Each one is a ballet of vehicular destruction that gradually intensifies as the film goes along.
What makes it all the more impressive is that the car chases don’t hinder the storytelling. In each car chase (in every action sequence really) there is a very important plot element, or character motivation that is revealed. This film would have been plenty of fun without all the mayhem. But the mayhem is here and the mayhem is equivalent to the film that came before this one.
THE BAD STUFF
THE KINDA SORTA LOVE STORY- I don’t know why this is here. I don’t recall this being mentioned in any way during mad Max: fury road, and everything happens so quickly in this section of the film when it comes to this, that the love story that is unnecessarily here begins as quickly as ends and I was just like…
Some tent poles just don’t need a love story. Most of the time when it comes to an action-based tent pole it is not necessary whatsoever. This is a prime example of that.
THE ENDING- To be fair, the ending makes sense, it ties up the story quite nicely, and explains a lot when it comes to the character of Furiosa and the Wasteland world that has been established.
The thing is though… I couldn’t help but be starved for more mayhem. As I mentioned before, the action scenes only escalate with elaboration and intensity as we go along, and I figured that the ending of this movie was going to have an all-time mind-blowing opening of saving Private Ryan type of violence extravaganza. But sadly no.
THE UGLY STUFF
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Mad Max: fury road is in my top 25 favorite films of all time. It’s one of the 10 best films of the entire 2010s, and my expectations might have been higher than the average person. I was cynical when I saw the trailer, and I went in very pessimistically. I’m happy to be wrong. This is just as aggressive of a movie as Mad Max: fury road and does a wonderful job of building a world that is both easy to follow and makes a lot of sense.
Mind you, this is not a better film than Mad Max: fury road, but it is a better film than anything released in 2024 so far. There are a lot of really interesting films being released this year, and I highly doubt there will be 10 films that will be good enough to push this out of a top 10 list come year’s end.Â
FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA is in theaters now
