Rating – ***1/2 (3.5/5)
Oh boy! It still feels like yesterday when director George Miller resurrected the world of Mad Max and presented us with Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). Easily one of the best action films of all time, Miller left everyone dumbfounded on what he was able to achieve in action and stunt design on celluloid. Here we are, nine years later as we dive deeper into the character of Imperator Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road; played by Anya-Taylor Joy in Furiosa), her origin story and of course, a slew of new characters.
What’s an accomplishment in itself is how Miller is able to keep this dystopian world with endless sand dunes, marauding mutants and some familiar creatures from Fury Road – interesting and still gobsmacking. Almost a decade later, and it still leaves one and all bewildered that how, just how is Miller and the impeccable action and stunt design team of the Mad Max World able to achieve this level of practical stunts without any deaths! The gore and the extremities are all there and it just adds to your screeching teeth as one sequence moves on to another.
You’re in Australia, Mate!
I mean if it’s Australia, it has to be Chris Hemsworth playing the erratic, eccentric, laid-back, funny bloke who is your bad guy and having just way too much fun. Furiosa is actually much less subtle than Fury Road too where you literally have two characters named Scrotus and Erectus (get it?), Hemsworth’s Dementus being sarcastic and even dim-witted – but it still lands enough to make you chuckle.
Revenge- The Ultimate Motive
Furiosa, doesn’t achieve the brilliance that Fury Road achieved – but it probably didn’t have to as well. Where Fury Road was adrenaline rushing genius madness by being an essentially one long action setpiece with fleeting breaks; Furiosa is your classic slow-burn episodic style five-chapter origin story that wants you to be invested in its digression – and that’s a tough task. And that’s also where it falters. It essentially just ends up being a thin story about how Furiosa is set out to take the revenge for her mother, who was killed. It might the ultimate motive but doesn’t have enough weightage to it.
Mad Max Fan or Not
One can understand Miller trying to distract you from the obvious expectation but it is still a wonder as to why the gaps are so long with seemingly unwanted character detailing which, even for a novice to this world is difficult to connect with. The chapter division sometimes act as a case of disjointed screenplay with events just being muddled together thus lacking cohesion.
Still, Bedazzling Banana Town
Having said that, Miller and the thousands of stuntmen involved in bringing this bonkers vision to fruition is enough to leave you bedazzled on this visit to banana town! Seldom will you be able to find action films that capture the raw and rustic nature of it along with splendid finesse and execution – Fury Road did that and here, Furiosa does that too.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga might not and is not an improvement on Mad Max: Fury Road but it doesn’t need to be. It just needed to be entertaining enough to be worth it, and that it certainly is.
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