May 24th 2024

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Only one film reviewed this week, but what a high-profile, high-octane butt-kicker of a film it is! For closet rev-heads like me it's a delight, but everyone can along along for the ride into one of the most creative and disturbing worlds on the big screen. 

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Dir: George Miller

Length: 148 mins

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJMuhwVlca4

© Universal - she is revenge and 
fury incarnate. 

The setting is a post-apocalyptic world in which bikie gangs roam the Wasteland in an Australia where lawlessness and dwindling resources are the name of the game. Everyone is competing for bullets, water and gas. In the Green Place, a secret outpost of relative plenty, Furiosa lives with her mother, until the day both are captured and delivered into the hands of crazed bikie warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). From a cute little girl picking peaches, to a ruthless one-armed warrior hell-bent on revenge, Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) is the embodiment of bravery and heroism; definitely not someone you would want to run foul of! In this fabulous prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, is which Charlize Theron played the titular character, we discover what happened to make Furiosa the formidable warrior she is. 

Enough of plot, because to really understand the the minutiae of director Miller's amazing world, I'd need to watch all the Mad Max films several times. This is the fifth film in the series, which began in 1979 and made Mel Gibson a star. For anyone who has never seen the films, I suggest visiting one of countless websites and boning up! But even if you know nothing, there is much to revel in, in this loud, furious, cruel, demented and super-entertaining vision of a self-destructive world. 

Imagination along with memorable characters is the name of the game. Dementus is played as a quasi-Roman emperor, driving his "chariot" pulled by three motor bikes. Hemsworth gives his role a messianic ockerish lunacy. Old favorites like Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and the People Eater (John Howard), along with the ghostly war boys all dominate the screen. Tom Burke as Praetorian Jack who initially drives the War Rig is one of the few sympathetic characters. Joy as Furiosa anchors the movie in a role of few words, but with an intensity and fierceness that could melt metal.    

Needless to say special effects, sets and stunts are mind-blowing - the building of the iconic war rig, which Furiosa eventually drives, the variety of weird vehicles cobbled together from junk, the imaginative ways weaponry is used to devastating effect, all the gruesome ways to die! The fortresses of the Wasteland, (Gastown, The Citadel and Bullet Town) feel grimly authentic, and the red deserts around Broken Hill make an incredible setting for all the high-octane, endless engine-throbbing action. 

My one quibble is that it is too long, especially the early scenes of  Furiosa's childhood as prisoner of Dementus. But this doesn't ultimately take too much from a film that adds to the legend and mythology of a frighteningly unforgettable world.

4 - highly recommended