Director: George Miller.
Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Lachy Hulme, George Shevtsov, John Howard, Angus Sampson, Nathan Jones, Josh Helman, Charlee Fraser.
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| Hemsworth was left profoundly disappointed by the human zoo. |
Go back and watch the original Mad Max film from 1979. The vehicular violence and sense of dread is there, but it doesn't feel even remotely like it's sitting in the same franchise as, say, Fury Road. It's an even wilder difference than watching the first Fast & Furious next to Fast X.
But here we are with the fifth film in the Mad Max saga, which, again, looks nothing like the 1979 original. Hell - this film doesn't even need Max - just the "Mad" bit. It's about the utterly insane world Miller has built - a post-apocalyptic wasteland in Australia's red centre where hordes of bikies and armoured oil tankers traverse the desert, leaving behind a trail of blood and body parts.
As the title suggests, this is about Furiosa, a character introduced in Fury Road and played there by Charlize Theron. This is her origin story, showing us how this one-armed bad-arse, now played by Taylor-Joy came to be such a one-armed bad-arse. It tracks her from her childhood, whisked away from a hidden utopia in the Wastelands, and thrust into the very worst that humanity has left to offer.
Whereas Fury Road largely ditched conventional movie furniture such as dialogue, character development and arcs in favour of balls-out action and ludicrous car chases, Furiosa is, by comparison, a more refined and traditional film, if such a thing can be said of a movie where a person is drawn and quartered by five motorbikes. Miller knows his world well, and revels in its dust, blood, and madness, but much like he did with Mad Max II and Beyond Thunderdome, we get to see how that world shapes the people who live in it.
Furiosa still keeps its furniture to a minimum. Despite playing the titular character, Taylor-Joy only gets a couple dozen lines, and is left to convey a lot with a steely look and a sneer, which she does admirably. The physicality of the role is key here, and she pulls it off the necessary amount of determination and desperation.
The lion's share of the lines go to Hemsworth as the nasally voiced wannabe-warlord Dementus. It's a great performance, suitably demented, and somewhat restrained when you consider how off the hook this could have been played. Hemsworth keeps it fun amid the death and destruction, and even makes him vaguely empathetic in places. In the Aussie actor's growing CV, it's not only one of his most interesting and against-type roles, it's also easily one of his best.
The real star is Miller though. His world gets to sit in centre-stage more so than any previous Mad Max film. This is a look at how the Wastelands functions, even hinting at how it got here. It's insane, but beautiful and intricate in its bonkersness. And it looks incredible, a few dodgy bits of CGI aside. The elaborately orchestrated chases and battles are here, though somewhat diminished in the shadow of Fury Road, but once again, this is high-octane stuff. The stuntwork is remarkable, the cinematography stunning, and Miller's direction throws you facefirst into the dust, grit and whirring propellers.
The inevitable question is "where does this sit compared to the rest of the saga?". While painted with many of the same colours as Fury Road, it's a different beast that doesn't quite wow like its predecessor (or Mad Max II for that matter), but is great nonetheless. Furiosa is the third best Mad Max film to date, and that's nothing to scoff at.
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