Movie Review: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) *No Spoilers*

This is another film that I would have liked to have seen in a theatre but, for whatever reason, didn't get to. Having now seen Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) almost a year later I'm glad I didn't.

Which is not to say it's bad. Like its predecessor Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which I enjoyed in a cinema immensely, this film would definitely benefit from being on a big screen for the spectacle and epic visuals of it all. 

However unlike its predecessor there is so much going on, with back and forth between the waring parties, and Furiosa's story as well, you can't just sit back and kind of enjoy the ride.

It's like writer/director, George Miller, wanted to cram in as many of his ideas as possible for the post apocalyptic world of Mad Max, because it's not likely he'll make another one, but whoever does, has a rich, detailed world of on screen source material to draw upon.

The story begins with young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) and her journey from the relative safety of her home, in the land of abundance, into the wastelands. From there the film is broken up into chapters and passages of time until, about an hour in, we finally see Anya Taylor-Joy as the young women version of the character.

Paralleling, and crossing into, Furiosa's journey is Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), a fairly competent warlord leader, looking to take over the major resource centers of the desert wasteland.

Everything you liked from the previous film is here, the cars, the stunts, the weird and wonderful characters, all new world building, and more. All of it is great, except you've seen so much of it already.

What's missing is the simplicity of the story, and, dare I say it, Max.

Max is the focal point of all the Mad Max films. He's the guy we're rooting for. He's the reluctant, wandering hero who turns up to help save the day. He kind of shared the screen in Fury Road, but Furiosa was somehow more relatable in that film. To the point that George Miller felt she needed an origin story that I don't think anybody was asking for. I certainly wasn't.

Don't get me wrong, Furiosa is a great character but, if anything, I would've rather seen her have another reason to team up with Max than go through her origin.

In Furiosa it's harder to relate to her. Partly because, for the first half of the movie, she's a child, and just kind of does what she can to survive. By that point you're wondering, is Anya Taylor-Joy even in this movie?

When Anya does finally appear, while the transition isn't jarring, you are aware Furiosa is a different actor to the one we've tried to invest our time with for a whole hour.

Even though we've seen her whole backstory, we never really get emotionally invested in her struggle, since she never really feels like she's in a situation that she's desperate to get out of. She just kind of goes with the flow - until she loses an arm (not a spoiler since you already knew she was missing an arm from the previous film).

Dementus is the only other character in the film we really spend any time with. It's probably one of Chris Hemsworth most interesting roles, particularly because he's a very talkative character who likes to think he's more sophisticated than he actually is.

While Chris is doing some great work, his character is not one you'll identify with, or have empathy for, because, while you could say he's almost likeable, nothing is really done to help you understand his point of view.

In a story that has so much going on, very little time is spent on character development. It's mostly about setting up what each character wants, and watching how they get there.

I feel this movie suffers in a similar way to how Mad Max II and Mad Max III feel like very different films with shared elements. Mad Max II is a very simple story of a town in its final days, where as Mad Max III brings a lot more world building, ideas, and storylines into play that are sort of Mad Max adjacent but held together because Max is actually a main character in that movie.

In the same way, Fury Road is a pretty simple story of an escape, except it is expertly told with incredible world building and straight up bonkers, new ideas. Furiosa takes that toy box and builds it out even more, creating a richer world, but forgetting this is a movie about Furiosa. She's there, but she isn't driving the story, like she and Max do in the previous film.

If anything this is should've been a story about Max versus Dementus, set after Fury Road (or even before). Only Furiosa's presence as a child requires this to be a prequel. Take her out of the story and it could be set almost any time. Everything looks the same as in Fury Road.

This could have been as good as Fury Road, and probably only needed a tighter edit. It's too long at two and a half hours. 

As a series that primarily appeals to a male audience, I found the first hour of watching young Furiosa not particularly engaging. Everything we learn about her could have been told with brief flashbacks and well placed exposition. It might of made for some good character development if we gradually learned how Furiosa came to be in her predicament so Anya could've been on the screen, causing mayhem, from the beginning (rather than her child self who seems too competent for someone who has grown up in an abundant community).

Overall, the ideas were definitely there for a great sequel. The movie certainly has some stand out action sequences and stunts. Chris is clearly enjoying his role, while Anya does eventually become the more familiar version of the character you came to see. You just kind of wish she got there sooner.

Great for all the world building aspects that some future director, or maybe even George Miller if he has another Mad Max film in him, can build upon but maybe get back to basics with a less complex script.