The film Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga hit theaters this weekend. Is it better than its perfect predecessor?
It was a hot day in May 2015. That weekend, a new Mad Max sequel was released with Tom Hardy replacing Mel Gibson in the title role. I was excited to see if this film exceeded any expectations caused by the trailer and all the mainstream influence the first trilogy is known for.
Finally, the film started, and right from the first frame, I was amazed at what I was watching. Mel Gibson ate dog food, but Tom Hardy devoured a live lizard. That’s when I knew I was watching something better. The beautiful cinematography with over-saturated colors, the nonstop action, the nuances in every character, and even the sound effects were extraordinary. We were getting deaf with Max when something exploded near him. We were there in the road wars.
People in 1926 got Buster Keaton fighting on a train. We got Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, and others fighting in the War Rig, minus being a Confederate sympathizing narration. This semi-silent movie is poetic, one of the best 21st-century films, and a perfect action flick. The bar was set too high for any following iteration of the franchise.
Now, Furiosa came out.
With Furiosa, George Miller doesn’t try to raise his own bar. He instead creates a stand-alone narrative revolving around the character that stole the show in Fury Road. A world (or should we say, wasteland) expanding story with more dialogue than usual in the franchise. That is a great effort and makes this a great action film in its own right.
Instead of consisting of three road battles, this prequel origin story is told in 5 chapters. It starts during Furiosa’s childhood when she was kidnapped to her brutal revenge as an adult. We see Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus villainous character switch from an annoying bully to an unhinged barbaric psychopath. It’s arguably the most compelling villain in Mad Max’s history.
A Mad Max Saga about humanity.
Dementus’ character layers are shown as this being a different film. It’s a real stand-alone that not only presents the main character’s origins but also throws light on the lore of Fury Road. In the past film, war was represented as a visual poetry; in the prequel, war is represented with prose. More than telling the origins of a single character, it also describes the origins of all the road warriors of the wasteland.
Anya Taylor-Joy had great shoes to fill. Still, she nailed it as the title road warrior. That is a matter of time as she has the looks and the presence to be a star. This epic dystopian tale cemented her as one of the best Hollywood actresses of this generation. Whether fighting in silence or expressing her grievances, she commanded the screen every second.
Furiosa might not be a perfect action movie like Fury Road. But it’s a close-to-perfect revenge drama that emphasizes the persona’s psyche more than their actions with the actual road war sequences we expect from any Mad Max saga. In parts, it’s grotesque, and in others, it’s visually stunning, and I hope George Miller continues to expand the wasteland.
