IR Film Review: FURIOSA - A MAD MAX SAGA [Warner Bros]
The context of Mad Max is to make the path as undeniable as it can be. There was something about "Mad Max: Fury Road". It had issues but it was a force of nature. George Miller willed that film into being. Comparing it to "Furiosa" is sort of hard to do. It is about path. The beginning of the film sans Anya Taylor Joy is almost just as good narratively as the latter half. Alyla Browne plays the adolescent Furiosa with a sense of knowing but it also sets up the Dementus structure with Chris Hemworth interestingly creating a character both tragic and yet funny. He is too verbose to be sure. "Fury Road" in many ways was a silent film motivated by Tom Hardy's Max and the limited vocals of Immortan Joe. But in many ways, "Fury Road" felt mucb more practical. It also had a very different look. Nambibia had this otherworldly feel of its location that feel gave "Fury Road" an different look. This one was completely shot in Australia so it does feel more like "Road Warrior" in many senses.
Furiosa's trajectory and how she is able to thwart being a bride is actually a little weak because it is surprising that more people wouldn't pick up on that in terms of what she actually did, especially inside the mechanic shop. It comes off too easily and coincidental. Narratively it is explained away so there isn't much turmoil around it. Once Furiosa becomes an apprentice of sorts to a smuggler, the true nature comes out. Taylor-Joy leans into this and it is of course the most dynamic role of her career thus far. Her integration with the smuggler is not unlike Max in "Fury Road" but it also shows why she is more than capabale of drivuing the truck. It makes alot of that story more vivid. One specific fuel run is wonderfully done and long but seems less acrobatic than one we saw 10 years ago. A later chase sequence and its aftermath is more telling and visceral both in Furiosa's approach but also in the reaction of Dememtus. There is a moment that Miller lets sit which is among the best work he has done in terms of a simple cinematic (not including action).
Hemsworth gets to play in the sandbox but Immortan Joe still is more imposing. It is only in the final minutes of the film that Hemsworth truly comes into his own because the face his character puts on compared with that of Furiosa is ironic and telling. The resolution is not supposed to be a resolution but a what if but the steel of Furiosa rings true. Joy does her justice while still paying respect to Charlize Theron's preclude. It was the right choice but one wonders how Theron would have done it. But that is why see some footage spliced in in the credits from "Fury Road" make the connection all the more relevant. It would have been nice to have less CG but the storyelling, the cost and the approach has changed in many in the 10 years since "Fury Road" was made. The beauty is that it enabled this to be made. B+
By Tim Wassberg
