How could George Miller possibly follow up Fury Road? That gem of an action extravaganza came at the right place, and time, with the right leading actors, and will never be topped. But damn if Miller doesn’t try with this Furiosa prequel. This film was enough that I hope Miller keeps getting checks to create more crazy cars and crazier car crashes in the Australian outback, which I assume more closely resembles junkyard instead of desert at the mayhem he’s caused.
What unfolds here is Imperator Furiosa’s (Alyla Browne) psychotic coming of age story. Before Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) became Furiosa’s Fury Road problem, her eyes only saw red for Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), leader of a rogue biker gang who kidnapped the girl from her home. She could have easily wilted, but older Furiosa’s (Anya Taylor-Joy) resolve remains steadfast, living on the DL, learning key life skills on the road with Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke). All those skills to be used for one reason: return the pain she feels to Dementus 10 fold.
There was no way Furiosa was gonna top Mad Max: Fury Road, with all its inventiveness and destruction. Miller does try a valiant recreation though. Slightly lesser Fury Road is still better than most of the lame action movies today. His big addition here is elevation. We’re going up and down various dunes and quarries, with Miller providing the epic scope these sequences demand. The action is also mixed up like Fury Road was; we’re not just on the road, we spend some time in various hand to hand combat sequences, or tense gunfights that end in usually really creative firey finales. But Miller never forgets his bread and butter, and the best stuff is his remixing of the machine vs. machine battles that he’ll be remembered for. Two in particular in the middle are incredible: one treats this giant tanker/rig vehicle like a moving set, with Taylor-Joy hopping all over that fantastic machine. And my personal favorite, an incredible tracking shot of two cars chasing each other that follows the cars up and down the sand dunes, just a kinetic masterpiece that got me pretty close to those 2015 highs.
As far as story goes, we’re also headed back to Mad Max Citadel. Furiosa’s life is beset on all sides by tragedy and heartbreak, and when terrible things aren’t happening to her loved ones, she’s also clearly being groomed to be an object of lust for the men in this cruel, awful place. No wonder Miller went with Anya Taylor-Joy, who’s been playing damaged, resilient characters for some time now. With very little dialogue, Joy mines what she can with those big eyes and that expressive face, laser locked with purpose for what Furiosa wants to do. And while Immortan Joe is still in this one, Chris Hemsworth’s gang helps fill out the rest of George Miller’s world building. I’ve enjoyed post Thor Hemsworth, trying weirder parts with standard action hero stuff, including this one, with a bizarre accent hiding the dark side of Furiosa’s existence, if she falls into his life traps. The world the two live in is a slightly bigger version of the one in Fury Road, with more mechanics explaining the larger society right before it collapses even further into madness.
Furiosa can take a bit to get going, but once we bike around the outback and Anya Taylor-Joy shows up, the movie kicks into the high gear we want it to operate on. I continue to be amazed with George Miller’s expansive mind for car on car violence, as well as his world building with very little dialogue. Dialogue tends to “slow things down”: said by the director who’s main characters he created are called Mad Max and Furiosa. Maybe some other action directors out there can listen to George Miller every once in a while too?