“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (2024) is a prequel, the origin story for Imperator Furiosa, whom Charlize Theron played in “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015), and the fifth movie in the “Mad Max” franchise. Director and cowriter George Miller and co-writer Nick Lathouris wrote this story in five chapters. In a dystopian, dying world called the Wasteland, formerly known as Australia, the Green Place of Many Mothers is a lush “place of abundance,” which Furiosa protects as a young child (Alyla Browne) when she sees a group of Dementors on the border of her home territory. Eager to prove that this place is not a myth, the Dementors kidnap Furiosa and bring her to their warlord, Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Her mother, Mary Jabassa (Charlee Fraser), tries to rescue her and kill anyone who can reveal the location of their home to protect it from invaders, but fails leaving Furiosa to witness a depraved life of brutality and exploitation. Though more protected than the average member of her captive community, she is only as safe as the group that she is with, and the Dementors provoke the more fearsome forces of Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), which means a change in captors, but her mission remains the same: escape and return home. As she gets older, Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) rises in the war ranks of her new captor and learns the ways of road war from Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke). When Dementus poses a threat to her plans once again, she vows to avenge herself and her mother.
“Mad Max: Fury Road” was really the Furiosa movie so adherents of that creative choice will adore this movie, but if a few franchise fans prefer Mad Max over world building, then this movie is not for them. Miller really fleshed out this society in a way that felt complete without being didactic or feeling like a massive prose dump. Furiosa is a riveting character, and the three actors playing her, Browne, Taylor-Joy and Theron, felt like a seamless, cohesive whole person. Browne dominates the first half, and Taylor-Joy carries the remainder, but the transition is almost indiscernible except for size. They create a portrait of a determined, resourceful and unrelenting person who never forgets her early teaching even as her violent upbringing changes the trajectory of her life. The film has very little dialogue because Miller believes in showing rather than telling, a rare gift among filmmakers, and the contrast is clear. Somehow Taylor-Joy even manages to sound like Theron. A glimpse of Furiosa’s home region shows a functioning, loving, normal community with a huge population of women roaming free in contrast to the known relative oasis civilizations in this post-apocalyptic world: the Citadel, Gas Town and Bullet Farm. Furiosa lives up to her name because she knows how the world could be because it is not just a dream, but a reality for her. It is unfortunate that this exaggerated world of desiccated environmental collapse and toxic masculinity bares an uncomfortable resemblance of our own.
Dementus is looking for a home for his nomadic biker gang, but his trauma—a teddy bear chained to his body signifies his lost family, has made him into a megalomaniac sculpting a world of competition, one upmanship and deception. Anyone who watched “Bad Times at the El Royale” (2018) will not be surprised that Hemsworth is quite deft at playing a charming leader by combining physicality with a silver tongue. He has evaluated himself, compared himself to others and knows how to put on a show to keep control over a riotous mass of unruly men (and some women). His sense of pageantry is unrivaled. The History Man (George Shevtsov), a man tattooed with words, is the narrator of the story as if he is telling a legend of a mythical hero and acts as Dementus’ advisor in the early days. While it makes complete sense that Furiosa would hate Dementus, he is a charismatic villain. Miller shows him transform from an itinerant, traveling huckster to a trickster who recognizes his disadvantage and rises to the occasion to outwit others. Furiosa and Dementus are suitable foils and the embodiment of the phrase, “You should have killed them when you had the chance.” He often advances despite the odds. There is a great scene in which he orders his gang to torture a couple to squash out their hope, but he does not watch the torture. Instead Dementus stares in the opposite direction visibly shaken at the depravity which he is capable of. It is perhaps why Furiosa weighs Dementus’ sins heavier than those of Immortan Joe, who has no moral code outside himself and seems naturally deranged.
Praetorian Jack is one of the rare men who is not utterly corrupted. In this world, beauty in people like Hemsworth does not automatically equate to goodness just like having deformities or not being conventionally beautiful does not mean that a person is evil. In a continued nice departure from the looks tropes, Burke was born with a cleft lip, and his character is the one that will make some swoon. During an amazingly choreographed extended fight sequence involving the War Rig, the only part of the fight that makes Jack pause is seeing Furiosa in action. Their attraction involves looks but also competence and shared values. His back story explains why he would prefer a warrior woman over a subjugated one.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” may be known for its unrelenting savagery, there is a delicacy to Miller’s epic neo-Western. Unlike Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” picturesque franchise, which alternates between treating the desert like a meditation garden, an amusement park or a Star Wars ripoff, Miller’s landscapes feel lived in. While shooting violence, his artful blocking obscures torture or the killing blow either with the mass of ravenous lynchers at the foot of a sideways cross, the disturbed sand dust in a dragging or the speed of a tracking camera as scavengers search masses of dead bodies. Miller is violent, not gratuitous or gory. Miller imbues pathos even in the death of a random War Boy. This installment instills an appreciation for the War Boys’ artistic militaristic fervor. The film is a stunning achievement, especially considering that it appears nine years after the most recent iteration in the franchise. It is unusual for visionaries to have more than one moment of glory, but Miller is just getting better over time. While the run time may be lengthy, it is a brisk two-and-a-half hours with little to no need to glance at the time. When Miller is done making movies, I plan to revisit the entire franchise.
With people bemoaning the death of movies with the box office failures of “The Fall Guy” (2024) and “If” (2024), “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” should be the real test of whether movies are dead. It is the rare action blockbuster that is also cinematic without feeling theoretical or unrealistic. No Disneyfication here or pulled punches. It is just raw human emotion on a majestic scale with a landscape as barren as the men’s souls who inhabit it. Like “Mad Max: Fury Road,” the film suggests that to move forward, you sometimes must go back. You will want to see this movie as soon as it ends.
