Review — Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Spoiler Alert!

‘Where must we go…

we who wander this wasteland in search of our better selves?’ ~ The First History Man [1]

After several unavoidable postponements, I finally got to see Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Alyla Browne as Furiosa. The fifth installment of director George Miller’s Mad Max franchise, the prequel takes place some 20 years before the action-packed events of Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). A spin-off tale set in post-apocalyptic Australia in the not-so-distant future, the film is curiously billed as a Mad Max Saga sans Mad Max (Max Rockatansky), the primary protagonist in all the previous films famously played by Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy. [2] 

A longtime fan of the franchise, I actually saw The Road Warrior in the theatre back in 1981 at the age of twelve and had a copy of Mad Max (1979) on RCA Capacitance Electronic Disc. The stories left such a strong impression on me, that to this day I foresee our dystopian future playing out more like Miller’s nightmarish vision than the more technologically advanced hellscapes predicted by Orwell (1984), Huxley (Brave New World), and others.

The current state of affairs and the frightening levels of corruption and incompetence in our halls of power all but ensure that we will never achieve the quixotic utopian futures envisioned by so many deluded dreamers. Forget about Campanella’s The City of the Sun (1602) or Faye’s A Day in the Life of Dimitri Leonidovich Oblomov (2010). Things are so bad that I think even John Carpenter’s Escape From New York (1981) and Mike Judge’s Idiocracy (2006) are too much to ask for.

Looking forward to seeing Furiosa for a while, I watched several YouTube videos about the movie and noticed that the critics shared a lot of the same criticisms and plaudits for the film. Not surprisingly I share many of them, but not all. Relatively late to the game, I will try not to be overly pedantic in my review.

First, unlike many of the other critics, I generally don’t have a problem with prequels. Just “because we already know what is going to happen,” doesn’t mean we cannot enjoy it. If a story is good and the movie is well-made it shouldn’t matter. For example, even though I know that the shark gets blown up at the end, I still enjoy watching Jaws (1975). Yes, we all knew Furiosa was going to lose her arm at some point, but I never imagined that it was her who tore off her chained mangled appendage like a she-wolf to escape her captors.

Many also complained about the poor computer-generated imagery (CGI). As someone who prefers practical effects and dislikes the overuse of CGI, I honestly did not find them to be all that bad or distracting. Strangely enough, I thought they were more noticeable in the trailers and teasers than in the actual film. [3]

While I would have preferred a new story about Max, Furiosa was very enjoyable. In addition to being visually and aurally stunning, the plot was strong, there was plenty of action, and the acting was all-around superb. As almost everyone pointed out, Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa and Chris Hemsworth as Dementus put in great performances and stole the show.

That being said, I still think Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa and Tom Hardy as Max in Fury Road were better. While Dementus was a great antagonist—certainly superior to Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) in Mad Max and Aunty Entity (Tina Turner) in Beyond Thunderdome—I believe Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) in Fury Road and the “Ayatollah of rock ’n’ rolla,” Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson) in The Road Warrior, were arguably more iconic villains. Needless to say, Mel Gibson’s Max was a tour de force. 

Another common complaint I did not share is the length of the movie. Running for 2 hours and 29 minutes I was never bored. My only real problems with the film are the unknown fate of Immortan Joe’s son Scrotus (Josh Helman), who is conspicuously absent from Fury Road, and how the verdant Green Place decayed into the crow fens in such a short period of time. We’re told in Fury Road that the earth was poisoned, but what happened to the mountainous terrain, wind turbines, and large buildings? Even more mysterious (and horrifying) was how there was a morbidly obese woman in The Green Place. Though only a few seconds long, I found this seemingly trivial detail to be the most disappointing scene in all five movies.

Even with all the criticisms, the film is still worth seeing. Especially when you consider there are so few decent movies being made these days. The last one I saw in the theatre that I enjoyed was Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023). Sorry Dune fans, but I thought director Denis Villeneuve’s recent adaptations were over-rated and not the cinematic masterpieces touted by many. [4] An unpopular opinion I know, but even though it was also unfaithful to Frank Herbert’s original tale, I’m partial to director David Lynch’s Dune (1984).

Sadly, despite being well-received by critics and the audience, Furiosa bombed at the box office. This and George Miller’s age (79) may prevent him from making his next planned project, Mad Max: The Wasteland. However unlikely, I’m still hoping to see Mel Gibson reprise his role as Max. Perhaps a silly pipe dream of mine, but this is no more ridiculous than me still holding out to see Arnold Schwarzenegger finally star as King Conan or Andrew Stanton making his sequels to John Carter of Mars (2012).

A worthy addition to the Mad Max world, Furiosa is a refreshing break from woke Hollywood’s incessant barrage of worthless trash. Mastermind George Miller gave us another epic high-octane action film without the mind-numbingly stupid storylines, tired old clichés, awful dialogue, and insincere, dogmatic, or sanctimonious progressive propaganda. Instead of another lame feminist girlboss, we got "the darkest of angels; the fifth Rider of the Apocalypse." [5]

By Giovanni di Napoli, July 5th, Feast of Sant'Antonio Maria Zaccaria

Notes
[1] Quote at the end of Fury Road.
[2] Technically Max makes a brief appearance nearly two hours into the film. For a couple of seconds, we see him eating canned food (Dinki-Di?) atop a hill next to his iconic V8 Interceptor (GT Falcon muscle car) while watching a severely mutilated Furiosa shamble across the Wasteland back towards the Citadel while carrion birds circle her. Though we don't see him, Max drags an unconscious Furiosa back to a maggoty old troglodyte woman living in a corpse-laden burrow outside the Citadel.
[3] No pleasing some folk, some of the same people who disliked the CGI also didn't like Chris Hemsworth's prosthetic nose.

[4] Dune: Part One (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024).
[5] History Man describing Furiosa to Scrotus during the Forty-Day Wasteland War.