Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

George Miller’s latest chapter to his Mad Max universe is a prequel to his masterpiece, Fury Road. This prequel gives us the heartbreaking and cruel backstory behind Furiosa, the tough as steel, oil covered, one armed bad-ass woman, portrayed by Charlize Theron, who has become an feminist icon since Fury Road. In this film she is played by Anya Taylor-Joy and by Alyla Browne, who does a wonderful job portraying Furiosa as a child. 

The film is broken up into chapters, beginning with Furiosa’s last day of childhood in the green place. For only a few minutes we are shown this beautiful oasis in the Australian desert teeming with life, fresh fruit, water and sustained by wind turbines and solar panels. That’s what you get when women are in charge: harmony, beauty and life. Venturing too close to the edge of their paradise, Furiosa is kidnapped by thugs on motorbikes. Her heroic mother pursues, but without spoiling too much, Furiosa ends up in the hands of a cruel war lord, Dr. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). 

Hemsworth plays this new baddie with an arrogant swagger, performative charisma and unmatched cruelty stemming from the one thing everyone in the wasteland can understand: hatred fueled by loss. After capturing little Furiosa, killing her mother and taking over Gastown, he uses the girl to barter with Immorten Joe (Lachy Hulme), selling her to become one of his wives. Furiosa’s hatred and malice in this film is focused on Dementus and she will take every opportunity she can to kill him or get back to the green place. 

Thankfully, Furiosa’s time in the cage with the wives is short. After a skin crawling incident with Rictus (Nathan Jones), she escapes and disguises herself as a war boy. She quickly proves herself brave and competent and helps in building the War Rig. No wonder she knows that machine inside and out, and here we see it brand new, shiny and chrome. When she’s grown, she works alongside Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), who discovers she’s a woman and probably has other secrets. He respects that and wants to work alongside her more. They plan to run away to the green place the first chance they get, but plans in this world never go as planned. 

I know what everyone wants from a new Mad Max movie: epic car chases and outrageous stunts! While this film is more story focused, Miller makes sure to sprinkle these thrilling scenes throughout the film, with a few new tricks to show off. I especially loved the flying machines trying to attack the war rig on its first run, and those maces on the back really pack a punch! The scene at the bullet farm is wonderfully intense and suspenseful, definitely a high point in the film. However, I will say none of these scenes held a candle to the manic intensity packed all through Fury Road… until the final chapter! Maybe Miller was waiting until that moment to channel into that energy, waiting for Furiosa to grow into it. I’ll admit, for me it was too little, too late.

But that doesn’t mean I did not enjoy this film, I really, really did. But you need to understand that I believe Fury Road is THE BEST FILM made in the past ten years. Don’t take that lightly. Fury Road is lightning in a bottle, we may never see anything as beautifully intense again. And maybe George Miller realized that he could never replicate his masterpiece. So Furiosa does not serve to replicate, but simply to expand our understanding of her character and the inner workings of The Wasteland she’s been forced to navigate. While the ending is very satisfying and the credits show spectacular images replaying the main events of Fury Road, I’ll leave with two things I wish had happened, or I hope to see in later Mad Max films: more about the brides’ revolution and a gruesome death scene for Scrotus. 

“There will always be war. But to get home, Furiosa fought the world.”