Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - A Full-Throated Banshee’s Cry

The Mad Max series is one of the few franchises in history that’s only gotten better with age, likely because George Miller’s refined and tinkered with his distinctive vision via each new development in filmmaking technology.

Anya Taylor-Joy stars as Furiosa in the latest installment of the Mad Max saga.

Precious few theatrical experiences have ever matched the surprising euphoria of seeing Mad Max: Fury Road. At the time, I had basically no familiarity with either the decades-long dormant franchise George Miller was resurrecting or his ambitious capabilities as a director. Seated in the very front row with my head cranked back at a 45-degree angle, Fury Road overwhelmed the senses: it was louder and larger than life, to the point that I felt I was being dragged along by the undercarriage of the war rig barreling through the Wastelands.

It’s not often you know you’re witnessing a masterpiece as you’re watching it, but Fury Road came at a moment when we all believed this level of madcap blockbuster filmmaking was a thing of the past.

Essential to Fury Road’s greatness is that its titular protagonist takes a backseat to Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa, the most badass action heroine since Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor pumped a shotgun with one ripped arm in Terminator 2. It’s thus a smart move on Miller’s part not to follow up Fury Road with a chronological sequel focused on Tom Hardy’s Max, but to give even more space to the legend of Furiosa with a prequel in the form of a Western-style bildungsroman.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a worthy successor to Fury Road.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is an altogether different beast than Fury Road, trading in the previous entry’s lean and mean car chase for a multi-chapter hero’s journey, a quest smeared in dirt and powered by adrenaline. Nearly a decade in the making, Furiosa is an epic tale of vengeance and survival in the harsh world of the Wasteland.

Abducted from the matriarchal Green Place of Many Mothers, young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) is spirited away from the Vuvalini tribe and her magnificent mother (Charlee Fraser). She is living proof to the warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) that there’s a hidden land of abundance. As the theatrical and power-hungry leader of the Biker Horde, Dementus has his sights set on ruling the entirety of the Wasteland, bringing him and little Furiosa up against Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme, taking over for the late Hugh Keays-Byrne) and his Citadel of War Boys.

Years pass, and Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) quietly bides her time in the Citadel as an apprentice to Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), the head of Joe’s military forces tasked with driving the war rig to and from Gas Town and the Bullet Farm, by now under Dementus’ control. With the Wasteland veering towards an all-out war of attrition, Furiosa gears up for her chance at vengeance against the man who stole everything from her, even if it means never being able to return home again.

Anya Taylor-Joy brings a feral ferocity to her portrayal of Furiosa.

Taylor-Joy had some massive boots to fill after Theron’s instantly iconic turn, but she rises to the occasion with the grace of an established movie star and the viciousness of an animal willing to gnaw its own limbs off rather than be shackled. Some hay has been made over Taylor-Joy’s thirty lines of dialogue: some publications are insinuating it’s misogyny not to give the actress as much to say as Tom Hardy’s equally reticent Max. The fact is that Furiosa’s sworn secrecy - to protect the location of the Green Place - doubles as a tactical silence designed to help her navigate the violently patriarchal power matrix of the Wasteland.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Hemsworth’s Dementus, a man who speaks with the unearned bravado of a sadistic Disney villain at any and every opportunity. Miller perfectly draws on Hemsworth’s comedic chops without pushing him over the edge towards demoralizing farce.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a film of truly epic proportions.

Furiosa more than delivers on the sort of death-defying stunt work that wowed audiences back in 2015: one particular sequence took 78 days and almost 200 stunt personnel to complete. Whereas most contemporary Hollywood blockbusters can’t manage even one decent action set piece, Furiosa boasts so many that I eventually lost count.

It’s a testament to Miller’s skill as a director that even at 79, he’s pulling off the sort of cinematic spectacle younger filmmakers with double Furiosa’s $168 million budget could never come close to achieving. The Mad Max series is one of the few franchises in history that’s only gotten better with age, likely because Miller’s refined and tinkered with his distinctive vision via each new development in filmmaking technology.

Soaked in blood, sweat, and oil, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a film of truly epic proportions that boasts some of the most striking visuals you’ll see all year. If the question is whether or not the mad Aussie still has it in him to make it epic, then Furiosa answers with a full-throated banshee’s cry that the man’s still got guzzoline running through his veins.