Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Director: George Miller
Writer: George Miller, Nick Lathouris
Sequel/Prequel to: Mad Max, Mad Max 2, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Mad Max: Fury Road
Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Alyla Browne, George Shevtsov, Lachy Hulme, John Howard, Angus Sampson, Charlee Fraser, Elsa Pataky, Nathan Jones, Josh Helman
Seen on: 28.5.2024

Plot:
When Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) was only a little girl (Alyla Browne), she was captured and ripped from her home, an oasis in the otherwise desert wasteland. In the clutches of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), leader of a gang of marauders, she is always plotting her escape. When Dementus’ gang comes to the lair of Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), she takes the chance to align herself with him. But Immortan Joe may not be the better choice, Dementus still wants her back and Furiosa’s goal is still to get home somehow.

Furiosa was my first time back in the cinema after a long break because I really couldn’t see myself watching it on the little screen for the first time. And while the visuals are often impressive and worth the big screen, the movie as a whole was also rather disappointing to me.

I liked the Mad Max saga so far, almost in spite of myself – I didn’t expect I would. Fury Road was probably the best film of them all, among other things because of the impeccable effects work for which it was lauded everywhere. Especially its use of practical effects made it stand out. So, when very early on in Furiosa, CGI is very clearly and jarringly used to show somebody jumping on a horse (of all things! A stunt that’s been done for like centuries), my first thought was, “uh-oh! We’re in trouble”. And we were.

It’s not that Furiosa is outright bad. It still has grand action scenes that are competently handled, both Furiosa actors – Taylor-Joy and Browne – do excellent jobs at portraying the character, and the relationship Furiosa has with Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) works perfectly. There were even a couple of story beats that I almost expected with a slight eyeroll and that never materialized which I loved, like how Furiosa’s tattoo was handled.

But Chris Hemsworth’s overblown performance plus his prosthetic nose plus the bad wig plus the teddy bear – it was all just too much, deflating his impact as a villain by pushing him into the cartoonish instead of the mythical. Speaking of mythical, the film might have bitten of more than it could chew there and tries to compensate for it by forsaking all subtlety. Maybe less would have been more.

Coupled with a few pacing issues, and a few things where I just couldn’t help but question the logic of the story (like, why would Immortan Joe let Furiosa be a warrior, instead of forcing her to have babies like all the other able-bodied women?), Furiosa just couldn’t live up to Fury Road. Given that I was so excited for it, especially because Furiosa was the protagonist, it really was a disappointment.

Summarizing: sigh.