maker George Miller caught lightning in a bottle with Mad Max: Fury Road. The legacy sequel successfully reignited the Mad Max franchise after being dormant for 30 years. Audiences were reintroduced to protagonist Max Rockatansky (now played by Tom Hardy) and the unpredictable post-apocalyptic world of Miller’s Australian Wasteland. While tons of moviegoers have since hailed Fury Road as a modern masterpiece, there’s always been a minority that never really gelled with its action-driven, yet admittedly straightforward plot — which is fair! That kind of criticism won’t be found with its prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, as Miller has crafted a totally different, gargantuan beast. Choosing to follow up one of the best action movies of the 21st Century with not a sequel but a prequel was a perplexing choice for many. By the end of Furiosa, though, George Miller proves that going in reverse was the perfect decision.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is unlike any other movie in the series, or even any modern blockbuster for that matter. It’s a sprawling epic that takes the shape of a folktale, as if the audience is witnessing history unfold in real-time. Split into five chapters, each one being more different than the last, this is more than a simple origin story for the Imperator Furiosa. Writer-director George Miller and co-writer Nico Lathouris make the Mad Max universe feel even more lived-in than it already is by fueling their script with rich lore and mythology. Furiosa’s origins are the ideal vessel for such expansion, and it’s not just because actor Charlize Theron made the character a fan-favorite in the prior film. Whereas Max Rockatansky got to live in the world right before the brink of its collapse, surviving in a dystopian wasteland is all Furiosa has known her whole life.
We first meet Furiosa at the age of 10 (played by Alyla Browne) as she happily lives with the Vulvalini tribe in The Green Place of Many Mothers — a hidden paradise where plants can still grow. When she’s unexpectedly kidnapped by stray bikers, Furiosa’s mother, Mary Jo Bassa (Charlee Fraser), ventures out to save her at all costs. The young Furiosa is brought to the warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), the crazed ruler of a growing Biker Horde filled with all kinds of stragglers and rejects. Whispers of a place with “great abundance” spread, putting Dementus on a mission to find Furiosa’s home to steal its resources. Mary Jo’s chances of rescuing her daughter seem strong at first. Unfortunately, Dementus gains the upper hand and keeps Furiosa as his new adopted daughter, but not before he tortures and kills her own mom right in front of the child.
The following chapters of this fable take place across the next 15 years as Furiosa (now played by Anya Taylor-Joy) fights tooth and nail to make it back home. Under the watch of Dementus, she learns to adapt to silence in order to protect the location of The Green Place and fulfill her mother’s dying wish of planting a single peach tree seed upon her return. Dementus begins a powerful crusade to unite the wasteland under his rule, with a sweet chariot of motorcycles being his go-to vehicle. This puts warlords Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), The Bullet Farmer (Lee Perry), and The People Eater (John Howard) on edge. As Dementus flips the hierarchy of the wasteland upside down, Furiosa is reluctantly sold into Immortan Joe’s possession at the Citadel, where she goes from living with his multiple wives in the breeding program to becoming a gearhead with the War Boys.
Despite Furiosa’s unrelenting drive to return home, all roads always lead back to Dementus. The false prophet’s naivety eventually tips the wasteland into a resource war of biblical proportions, which gives Furiosa the unique opportunity for revenge. George Miller delivers another stellar, extremely memorable villain in Dementus. He’s an invertible force of nature, a self-proclaimed messiah like Immortan Joe but with more deceptive charm and highly erratic methods. His disruption kicks off a chain reaction of disastrous events that were a long time coming for the wasteland. It’s fascinating, and also quite gratifying, to see how Dementus’ impact shapes the landscape into how we know it in Fury Road. Chris Hemsworth is at his slimiest here, giving a despicable yet extravagant performance that demands your attention at all times. He’s both over-the-top and deeply sinister, which leads to the funniest bits of dark humor in the entire film.
Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus is an excellent foil for Anya Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa. Just like Tom Hardy in Fury Road, Taylor-Joy’s leading performance in Furiosa relies on subtlety and physicality. The character’s minimal dialogue doesn’t lessen the performance at all — it actually helps elevate it. Furiosa suppresses all of her emotions behind a tough exterior out of her survival instincts, and it’s in the moments when she feels truly exposed that Taylor-Joy gets to excel in the role. Whether this be due to a life or death scenario in the middle of a huge action scene or a quiet moment where she finds rare solace in someone like Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), an ally who teaches Furiosa how to drive war rigs. The ferocity and gravitas that Taylor-Joy is able to capture with just her eyes is worth the price of admission alone.
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Mad Max: Fury Road proved that immersive world-building could be pulled off purely through visual storytelling, without the need for any exposition or spelled-out explanations. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga continues this brilliantly. Whereas locations like Gas Town and the Bullet Farm were only talked about in Fury Road, we now get to visit them in all of their glory. In these instances, so many delicious layers are added to the film’s connective tissue to Fury Road — again, mainly through visuals. It only makes the wasteland as a whole feel more alive and expansive. From marauders with flying jet propeller backpacks to adorable man-eating dogs to even a war boy named “Piss Boy” who carries around bottles of urine, no one is creating more outlandish cinema mythology right now than George Miller. The original world-building on display at this blockbuster level can only be compared to James Cameron’s Avatar franchise.
Underneath all the chaos, though, lies a subversive tale about testing fate and giving into our own weaknesses. George Miller and Nico Lathouris’ screenplay offers plenty of surprising turns across its six chapters. Of course, there are numerous high-adrenaline action sequences, one of which involves Furiosa unleashing a giant drill in epic fashion. However, the latter chapters of this story end on a rather shocking note for a Mad Max film. The final showdown between Furiosa and Dementus is not what you’re expecting at all. It’s at this moment that Anya Taylor-Joy leaves her mark on the franchise, not because of a flashy action stunt but because of how she embodies Furiosa in a way that both respects Charlize Theron’s portrayal while also justifying the need for this prequel. Taylor-Joy has always stunned in her roles, from The Queen’s Gambit to The Menu, but now she’s a certifiable action star.
George Miller defies all expectations with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, a prequel that cements itself as a crucial piece of the Mad Max mythos. Fury Road is already spectacular on its own, but revisiting it after Furiosa will make every emotional beat hit twice as hard. Together, they make the perfect double feature. It’s hard to think of another modern prequel that significantly compliments its predecessor like this while offering its own gripping narrative. It’s a magnificent feat of blockbuster filmmaking, bolstered by a group of creative talent operating at the top of their game. Cinematographer Simon Duggan and composer Junkie XL deserve to be in this conversation, too, for giving Furiosa a mythic feel and atmosphere distinct from Fury Road. Above all else, Miller’s latest masterwork gives stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth new booming high points in their respective careers. What a lovely day, indeed!
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. The film hits theaters on May 24!
Release Date: May 24, 2024.
Directed by George Miller.
Written by George Miller & Nico Lathouris.
Based on characters by George Miller & Byron Kennedy.
Produced by Doug Mitchell & George Miller.
Main Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Alyla Browne, Lachy Hulme, Nathan Jones, Josh Helman, John Howard, Angus Sampson, Charlee Fraser, Quaden Bayles, & Daniel Webber.
Cinematographer: Simon Duggan.
Composer: Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL).
Production Companies: Kennedy Miller Mitchell & Village Roadshow Pictures.
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Runtime: 148 minutes.
Rated R.
