Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Movie Review

Mind-blowing. Almost every part of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is intense and mind-blowing. It’s a wild ride that never stops. What I liked most is how director George Miller knows his audience so well at this point that we simply blend into the film. ​

You can be sitting in a giant theater that’s jam-packed with people, but it doesn’t matter; you will experience this movie alone. It’s as if you’re watching a distance away from the action playing out before you, well aware of the people you should avoid. There’s so much coming at you all at once that you’re embroiled in it, too.

This is actually the prequel to “Fury Road.” When we meet Furiosa in that film, she is played by Charlize Theron. Here it’s Anya Taylor-Joy. This story is told in five acts, starting with young Furiosa (Alyla Browne), like Eve, picking not an Apple but a peach. The seed of which becomes an intrinsic part of the narrative. Furiosa is kidnapped and presented to the ruthless chieftain, Dr. Dementus (Hemsworth), who is extraordinary in the role. Not to take anything from Anya Taylor-Joy’s performance (which is perfect) as an older Furiosa, but he was truly remarkable. The actor even wears an appendage that makes it impossible to see Hemsworth or Thor, thank goodness.

Dementus lost his wife and children in battle. He still carries a teddy bear that belonged to one of them which shows he has a heart in there somewhere, but it has, to a large degree, hardened. Furiosa’s captors tell him that she comes from the Green Place, a place of abundance that has water and food. They do what they can to get her to tell her where that place is. Her mother (Charlee Fraser), who meets a grizzly end but shows some true valor before she goes, instructs her daughter not to talk. After Furiosa is forced to watch her mother’s demise, the savages taste her tears, theorizing that tears of joy and sorrow are made up of different chemical compositions and, therefore, taste differently. Dementus gives it the liquid try.

Not long after, he and his gang of marauders, who want everything that’s not nailed down, leave the Wasteland to attack the Citadel. They go after Gasland, as well. There’s a scene with Furiosa and Praetorian Jack on the road being assaulted. I can’t imagine preparing the blocking and staging for this sequence. It would have been a challenge as it is epic to watch. It’s one of the best scenes in the film or any of the others previously. Yes. “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is that good.

The movie has impeccable dialogue. Hats off to writers George Miller and Nico Lathouris. Most of Lathouris’ work has been that of an actor. In fact, he was the character “Grease Rat” in the 1979 “Mad Max,” the start of it all. But he and Miller have come up with new, bizarre characters that you can’t peel your eyes away from. You’ll enjoy getting to know them. The length of the movie helps with this and you won’t mind one bit.

“Furiosa” is also visually stunning. The editing it took to make this almost two-and-a-half-hour flick feel too short was well crafted by Eliot Knapman and Margaret Sixel, who have both worked for George Miller on “Three Thousand Years of Longing” and several other projects. It takes a team who knows one another well to come up with what you see here. There’s constant movement that grips you and doesn’t release you until the theater lights come up. I think I left imprints on the armrests. This is the movie you were hoping you’d see and Miller delivers superbly for you as does Chris Hemsworth who’ll blow you away.

Don’t stay for anything extra. There is a tiny bit at the end, but it isn’t worth the minute’s long credits.