Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Review: Sweat, dust and roaring engines!

The hypnotic rhythm and pace of Mad Max: Fury Road is replaced with audacious yet segmented world building in the origin story of Imperator Furiosa (played by Alyla Brown as a child and Anya Taylor-Joy). Though still wildly entertaining with thrilling set-pieces and multiple nods to the original trilogy, it is a film that rides along with a few bumps in the road mostly down to the fact that Taylor-Joy isn’t afforded enough screen-time. Still, there’s plenty of gonzo action to enjoy and a riotous performance by Chris Hemsworth as the villainous warlord Dementus.

Kidnapped from the hidden and peaceful Green Place, where nourishment is abundant and women rule, a young Furiosa is plunged into a hellish patriarchal wasteland where men battle it out over fuel, water and food. From the very start George Miller’s prequel toys with Biblical and ancient imagery of paradise lost, sacrifice and deities, and it appears with this contemporary franchise he is crafting a new mythology with a female heroine that is reminiscent of Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies (1405).

It all plays out in the vast Australian outback with startlingly beautiful long shots and surreal zooms, camerawork and editing. Gone is the female energy of Fury Road, now replaced with trippy Wake in Fright vibes in its depiction of male violence. Furiosa survives by making herself invisible and pretending to be one of the boys. Her eventual rebellion is wonderfully portrayed by Taylor-Joy who displays the incredible force of a rageful woman with a piercingly powerful monologue about stolen time and grief.

The way the screenplay shows how Furiosa is shaped by a hostile environment in a world not designed for her success twinned with Taylor-Joy’s portrayal of distress and anger makes the titular character’s pain and frustration deeply felt. Tom Burke’s (another excellent turn) appearance as Praetorian Jack adds a further layer to Furiosa’s motivations.

Miller is once again firing on all cylinders with Furiosa and though it doesn’t quite match the highs of Fury Road, it is an exhilaratingly alive action movie filled with elaborate stunts that were made to be seen on the big screen.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga will be released in the UK on 24 May 2024 by Warner Bros. Pictures.

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