Films for Breakfast

Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the most revered and revolutionary action films ever made, so any form of follow-up or continuation naturally comes with massive expectations attached to it. Nine years later, after much anticipation, George Miller brings us Furiosa – a film that wisely knows it can’t topple Fury Road in terms of insanity and scale, so it might as well try to be completely different. Miller carves out another space in the wasteland for a film that isn’t as interested in the spectacle and mayhem as it is a personal revenge story more akin to the original Mad Max. The film follows the titular hero, played by young actress Alyla Browne in the earlier half and Anya Taylor-Joy in the second half as she grows older, as she falls between the hands of psychotic, biker war-lord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) and dictator Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) – as these two tyrants duke it out over control of the Wasteland, Furiosa attempts to find both a way home and a path to revenge against Dementus, the man who took everything from her.

George Miller is simply one of the most visionary filmmakers of all-time. His ability to capture such insanity and scale will never cease to astound me due to his sheer eye for spectacle and style in equal measure. With Furiosa, which might not be quite as large and bombastic as Fury Road, he manages to make every moment hit as hard as it possibly can, and with the help of cinematographer Simon Duggan, also look as visually stunning as it possibly can. In particular, there’s a sequence where war boys and bikers are flying mid-air around a tanker that quite literally took my breath away; one of the most astounding action set pieces I’ve seen in many years and can stand right against the likes of anything found in Fury Road. And there’s more where that came from!

The tricky thing about doing prequels is that they, inherently, either help or hurt the film that you’re riding the coattails of. Fury Road is a masterpiece, so I wouldn’t necessarily say Furiosa drastically improves upon the film or adds much deeper layers to what you can already take away from it as its own piece of work. However, the story that George Miller has crafted for Furiosa and how it ties into the themes of Fury Road make them equally beneficial and complimentary to one-another. On the surface this feels like a fairly straight-forward revenge story, but the way Miller executes it and ties it into themes about humanity, hope, perseverance and feminism are so dazzling and immensely, thematically powerful. This only elevates the already stellar action to higher degrees as you genuinely care and invest in each and everything happening on-screen.

Charlize Theron was a standout in a film full of standouts in Fury Road, so it was really hard for me to imagine anyone else taking on the mantle of Furiosa. However, Alyla Browne turns in a really solid performance as young Furiosa in the first half of the film, and Anya Taylor-Joy is truly mesmerizing and ferocious within her portrayal of the character as the film jumps forward within time. Where Fury Road finds Furiosa more restrained within her anger and driven to get her band of women to safety, Furiosa finds the character completely hellbent on revenge and violence against the people that wronged her. This paves way for Anya Taylor-Joy to deliver a performance that feels entirely like the same character we know and love from Fury Road, while also giving it her own spin full of rage and pure emotion. Truly astounding work.

However, the revenge element of the film can only be as good as whatever performer is playing the main antagonist, and in the case of Chris Hemsworth as Dementus, he absolutely steals the show. Hemsworth has done an admirable job at showing his comedic and dramatic chops in recent cinematic offerings, not to mention his stellar run as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe… but Dementus is truly his best performance to-date. This is the type of unhinged, sporadic and looney performance that can truly redefine ones perception of an actor. His work here can go from hysterical to absolutely terrifying in no time at all, and that makes the stakes and situations between Furiosa and Dementus feel all the more intense and unpredictable.

I can definitely see some audiences being taken aback by how character and story driven the film is, or even turned off by the five-chapter structure that gives it a more unique sense of pacing than Fury Road had; but these elements and choices simply make Furiosa feel like a different type of beast, not a lesser one. For anyone who has been accustomed to George Miller’s signature style and are prepared to go on an epic, 148-minute venture into the Wasteland with operatic, revenge-fuelled storytelling and visually dazzling sequences galore – you may just love what you find. Furiosa is a beautiful sight to behold; a dazzling, wonderful balancing act of technical perfection and sheer chaos and anarchy in a way that only George Miller can deliver. An instant classic and a worthy follow-up to Fury Road.

5/5