In Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Hell Literally Has No Fury Than a Woman Wronged

I begin this review with a caveat: I have seen Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the prequel to the extraordinary and exhilarating Mad Max: Fury Road, only once: at a combined press/word of mouth screening. Furiosa is a movie with so much going on that it requires, much like its predecessor, more than several viewings to take it all in. I will admit that it left me a tad underwhelmed at first, which was unavoidable given the sheer energy, madness and gumption of Fury Road (2015), an action film unlike any other we had seen at that point, one that built and expanded the original Mad Max universe director George Miller created back in the late 70s. But this beast called Furiosa needs to be seen not only on its own terms but also as part of a whole continuum, one whose richness may be better appreciated if you watch it back-to-back, in chronological order, with Fury Road. I like to think of Furiosa as a transitional film of sorts, between the world depicted in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Mad Max: Fury Road. It shows us how far Miller’s apocalyptic world has de-evolved from that 1985 film to his more contemporary, nihilistic and doom-ridden 21st Century vision.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is, in essence the story of a young girl ripped from the Garden of Eden she called home, a place where women are the dominant force, and is thrusted into an arid, savage, misogynistic landscape; she is forced to learn how to survive in it, how to become as ruthless and resourceful as the demented men, some mutated by whatever cataclysm befell the planet, who rule the diverse clans that dot this grim new world. War is never too far behind: one that is fought, as is to be expected in the Mad Max universe, with two- and four-wheel contraptions, sawed-off shotguns, paragliders and homemade bombs, all of which Furiosa will learn to drive and wield.

As the film opens, ten-year-old Furiosa (played in the first hour of this almost two and a half hour film by Alyla Browne) and her sister are picking fruits at the edge of their “Green Place” when she hears some bikers from the outside talk. She tries to sabotage their bikes, gnawing at their fuel lines, but is kidnapped by them. Her mother (Charlee Fraser) pursues them across the desert in horseback and then a bike, bringing most of them down with her sniper skills until the bikers finally reach their homebase, ruled by one Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), a warlord who loves to hear himself talk and is has one mean sadistic son-of-a-bitch. Furiosa is proof that greener lands have survived the apocalypse but Furiosa wont say a word. Her mother’s rescue attempt fails and she meets a most brutal end. Furiosa is taken by Dementus as a surrogate daughter and pet, but the seed of revenge is now deeply planted in her.

While Mad Max: Fury Road was one long, extended chase sequence in a vast territory, Furiosa expands on this world, with much back and forthing (for lack of better term) between cities and characters, all competing and desiring each others’ resources. You could argue that Furiosa tells two origin stories: that of the title character and that of how this world came to be. That’s how, in the aftermath of Dementus’s failed incursion on The Citadel, the domain of Immortan Joe (now played by Lachy Hulme after Hugh Keays-Byrn passed away in 2020), Furiosa finds herself as part of an exchange of goods between the two clan leaders. GIven what we know of Immortan’s use of women as breeding machines, it doesn't bode well for Furiosa’s future. But she is a resourceful child and in the first of two hair-shaving scenes, she contrives to insinuate herself into this world.

Flash-forward to who knows how many years; Anya Taylor-Joy now takes over as the title character, just in time for the film’s one extended and exciting chase sequence involving a rigged gas tank, paragliders, and the Mad Max-like Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke). She again puts her resourcefulness to good use in beating the odds against him and he becomes her mentor. The film also hints at a potential romance between the two but Miller knows damn well that, in his world, there is no room for romance. There is no space for sentimentality, especially when two clan chieftains are at loggerheads with each other over their trade agreement. The film’s energy is partially zapped by this conflict but it is also the prime motivator for the down and dirty, almost personal action sequences of Furiosa’s second half where both Furiosa and Jack battle mano a mano with whatever is at their reach with Dementus and his horde.

But this is a revenge film after all and all paths lead to a final showdown between Furiosa and her mother’s killer, a showdown which feels somewhat unsatisfactory in how Miller frames it as a mythical moment with three separate endings. He also sets up what could very well be additional stories in this universe, if Miller still has the energy to produce them. One of them is, of course, this “Green Place” of which we see very little but know, through Fury Road, that it was somehow destroyed. How was life in that Green Place? How did its matriarchy keep hostiles away? What led to its downfall? I’d pay to see a movie about that.

Maybe that’s why I feel underwhelmed. After two hours of careful, though stuffed, story-telling, those final 20 minutes of the film feel rushed, as if Miller suddenly realized that he had gone astray in the bizarre politics of this universe and needed to wrap up this revenge story fast. Miller is more than a master craftsman; he is a visionaire, a mad man, an artist full of insane ideas who should never ever be taken for granted. I know many critics were down on Three Thousand Years of Longing, but there were far more interesting (and sometimes even bleak) ideas in that film and on Furiosa and the four Mad Max films that preceded them than there are in your run-of-the-mill franchise blockbuster. His imagination overflows into the screen with vistas and shots and sequences that are beyond anything the Michael Bays of the world can imagine. Muller is also a disciplined filmmaker with a keen sense of what makes scenes move. Here is the thing: his action sequences may be exciting to watch; we may feel our adrenaline pumping as we fist pump every smash and every explosion. But, unlike other films of this genre, there is no sense of triumph. No bad guys have been vanquished. These characters, in the end, are in full survival mode. And if they got off this one alive, who knows what the future, when next they go out in the field and are chased by a horde of maniacal bikers, will hold for them. It is not enough for Miller to entertain you; he also wants to show you what the world could turn into without lecturing you. Needless to say, and given the current political moment we find ourselves in, he doesn’t see a bright future for us.

So much for my being ambivalent about Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Another view is warranted.