Review by Nicholas Porteous for Mr. Will Wong
Mad Max: Fury Road blew the lid off action cinema–heck, cinema in general–nine years ago. It was an awe-inspiring hybrid of pure, visual storytelling, stunts, and staggering organizational genius on the part of Director George Miller. The Movie won six Oscars (too few in this Critic’s opinion), and left the movie-going world hungry for more. After the sharp, wondrous detour that was Three Thousand Years of Longing, Miller has returned to his signature desolate world of blood and sand with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, a Prequel which lays the groundwork for Charlize Theron‘s equally mysterious and iconic character–this time played by Alyla Browne (for the considerable first couple of acts) and Anya Taylor-Joy. Does this Movie come close to replicating the glory of Fury Road? Is that even possible? Yes and no.
As a two-and-a-half hour journey into the dystopian world of Mad Max, Furiosa is without compromise. Every frame is as rugged and deliciously dire as one could hope. Its many action sequences are dizzying feats of stunt work, performance and digital embellishments so well-woven into each other that there’s zero point in trying to figure out the delineation between what’s real and imagined. It’s immersive as hell–in more ways than one. Chris Hemsworth absolutely steals the Movie as Dementus, a much more compelling and twisted villain than Fury Road‘s Immortan Joe, who also plays a considerable role here. Hemsworth’s slimy, seat-of-his-pants performance is so good it made me wish he’d lost out on Thor–as great as he’s been with the character–and instead played any number of other, more complicated humans over the last ten-ish years. Both iterations of Furiosa herself are good, though neither Actor is given a ton to work with beyond an unflinching, vengeful gaze. Much has already been made of the character’s distinct lack of dialogue, which is in line with Furiosa as we know her from Fury Road, but I still feel as though her range is more constrained this time around. She’s largely motivated by fear and a need to keep her mouth shut in order to survive.
Coming into Furiosa, I anticipated an experience akin to Fury Road–that is to say a relentlessly paced, tightly focused, action-driven story. Let me recalibrate your expectations, dear Reader! Furiosa is a much more episodic beast. Its dramatic engine is powered by fits and starts–false endings and uncertain turns. It’s sprawling and lengthy in a way Fury Road could never be–spanning many years. If it wasn’t the followup to such an explosive chapter in the Mad Max saga, I might hesitate to call this one muddled–but in the shadow of Fury Road, as a pulpy yarn of vehicular death and destruction, I’m sorry to say it doesn’t quite measure up. There are chapters of Furiosa that left me scratching my head. Its climax feels drawn out and inevitable rather than the blow-out one might expect–even watching Furiosa in isolation. When the credits rolled, interspersed with clips from Fury Road, inviting obvious comparisons, I felt an intense desire to watch its predecessor yet again–but I wasn’t sure if I’d ever return to Furiosa when I could just skip to the best part.
I wonder how Furiosa might play to those who haven’t seen Fury Road. Is it best as a story without a legendary precursor? Or is part of the potential magic of the Movie tied explicitly to knowing who Furiosa becomes? Every true prequel is inherently a victim of lower stakes, because we engage with them knowing full well who will survive and who almost certainly won’t, and Furiosa doesn’t present any sort of compelling answer to these fundamental issues aside from being another passionately crafted George Miller epic. I hope I’m not giving the impression that anyone should skip out on the Movie–on the biggest screen they can find. At the end of the day, it’s still a massive, cinematic jolt to the senses. Just go in with the knowledge Furiosa isn’t Fury Road 2.
Warner Bros. Pictures Canada release FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA in theatres Friday, May 24, 2024.
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