Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

It would be folly to try and outdo Fury Road and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is smart enough to not even attempt that. It's a completely different film in its structure which allows it to be a prequel that tells a complete story on its own whilst still enhancing Fury Road with its world building. The fact that George Miller is still telling stories in the wasteland at this scale is a real gift.

Alyla Brown gets a lot more screen time than child versions of pre-established characters usually get and with next to no dialogue she is superb at communicating everything without words. Carrying that on for the second half, Anya Taylor-Joy does a phenomenal job and was right to fight to keep the scream in. If you need someone to act exclusively with their eyes, she is as perfect as they come.

Chris Hemsworth is clearly relishing the opportunity to play a properly mad villain with Dementus and has so many chill inducing moments. This is easily the best he's been so far, completely unhinged with just enough depth to explain everything he does. He's a complicated figure who always seeks power but is never able to truly hold onto it.

George Miller truly is a genius when it comes to exploring this franchise. Getting to see a fully realised Gas Town and Bullet Farm allows this world to cohere like never before and the action crafted here is so epic with gorgeous imagery that refuses to slow down. Just like John Seale achieved last time, Simon Duggans's cinematography can keep the action clean no matter what's thrown at it.

It makes sense that the only way Tom Holkenborg could come close to his best work on Fury Road was to return to the wasteland and his score here continues to compliment the kineticism of the action so well. The only downside is the CGI which looks pretty bad at various points and stands out further because of how well Fury Road implemented it.

Pretty good movie. Enough action and with enough speed for the most part. Fun to see the three major settlements back from the 2015 mad max saga.

In the begin I did worry a little bit about the green screen effect what I did notice but that feeling faded away over time.

There is however one big negative and that was the last 20/30minutes. Slow paced, little bit boring and dragged on.. I was kinda waiting for the movie to just end. Its a shame because it makes you leave the theaters with a bad taste for a pretty good movie.

Actors were decent, script decent, action decent, green screen decent (but could been better), story line decent (except ending).

All by all 7out of 10.

For crying out loud, what do you want?

From criticism of Mad Max Fury Road for having too little story to its sequel for having too much. Make up your mind!

Each of the Mad Max films is different and an evolution from the last. Mad Max was the raw punk album. The Road Warrior was the more commercial, difficult to pull off second album. Thunderdome was the more accessible but toned-down third album that forces the band into a hiatus. Fury Road is the lauded reunion album with the new lead singer. Furiosa is the experimental album and the accumulation of everything so far into an epic opera.

Both actresses playing Furiosa are perfectly cast, the younger particularly. The surrounding characters are as grotesque and over-the-top as you would expect from this series. The acting likewise. These films are never subtle and that is part of their appeal. The design is as magnificent as the world-building, and its look is (for the most part) superb. I adore the colour palette. The music may not be quite as memorable as Fury Road, but certainly was not a distraction.

Now, the action may not have the same kinetic energy or frenetic insanity as Fury Road, but the nature of the story does not lend itself to this. The story spans many years and is episodic by design. It is an origin story rather than a road movie. Perhaps the more obvious and extensive use of CGI distracts slightly from the physicality of the action sequences but they are no less epic.

Suffice to say, I loved it. I appreciated the differences between Furiosa and Fury Road as much as its evolution within the same universe. I will take any offer of further time in Max and Furiosa's apocalypse on the condition that Miller either directs or has a hand in its development.

And yes, Furiosa IS a Mad Max movie and, contrary to some reviews here, Max does appear in the film, albeit fleetingly.

Furiosa is not Fury Road and is all the better for it. They are both remarkable works of movie art in their own right in my opinion.

More please.

Furiosa would be easier to watch if Fury Road never happened. After the incredible cinematography magic that genius John Seale weaved, Furiosa felt just like some lacklustre adaptation of a far superior source material.

Only thing I found charming was the overall 80's feel, resembling the style of a Road Warrior, and some scenes feel like they were recreated straight from the original trilogy. While action sequences are, as expected, top notch, the epic sense of awe and sheer crazy excitement that ludicrous stunts and choreography brought us in Fury Road was lacking. Editing was sometimes atrocious. Even in the best action or "poignant" scenes this movie had to offer, I never felt that I'm watching it from the edge of my seat, nor did I get emotionally involved with any of characters.

Speaking of which, acting was fairly wooden, lines declamatory delivered, the script overall seemed recycled and overly done, bordering on boring. Storytelling was chaotic, rushed and dragged at the same time. Sometimes the unnecessary narrator helped things to move along, unfortunately in a bad way.

But the major flaw was that there was no hero's journey for any of characters. Furiosa is the same person at the beginning as she is at the end of a movie, same as Dementus. Remember Nux and his journey? There is nothing like it in Furiosa. Furthermore, Furiosa endures every hardship with the same fierce look in her eyes - we never see pain, never fear, never doubt. She shrugs any injury off, like a terminator. It was hard to get emotionally involved with her character. Unfortunately, she came across as a classic girl boss, amazing in everything she does from the start to the finish, as a kid, and as an adult. Relationship between Furiosa and Praetorian Jack is so robotic and unemotional it's painful to watch. Dementus's monologue at the end was a snoozefest. All in all, I witnessed it, and found it mediocre.

George Miller... "Why yes, yes I do. Well sort of anyway..."

I really really wanted to love Furiosa but in the end I didn't, I liked it but didn't love it. Big big shoes to fill, I completely love Fury Road - a perfect action film in every way, so I was prepared to have this film fall in its shadow. Which it did. Furiosa is fun but its sadly no FR.

The good news: You want action? There is action, loads of it. Like any good Mad Max story it holds true to its promise to entertain the masses with spectacle. Glorious. We get the hot rods, big wheels, diggers, bikes of all shapes and sizes, as well as flying contraptions, weaponry galore and no holding back on the violence. Explosions, bodies flying, witness me etc. Plenty. It can be brutal and nasty but true to form and true to Mad Max. What more do you want?

Casting is good, perhaps a few too many characters leaving each of them to have not quite enough to do especially with Immortan Joe's followers. Anja Taylor Joy is good as Furiosa and Hemsworth seems to really be enjoying himself. Dementus is a great villain, a sort of love child of Immortan Joe and The Humungus; the presence, the wee speeches, his villainy is fun. And he gets to be very Aussie no need to hide that accent. I also liked a younger and much cleverer Immortan Joe; in this film he's not the core bad guy and without the need to get his 5 wives back as a motivator making him crazy we get to see him as the warlord he is. Smart and patient and in control.

And there's world building! Which was very cool. We got to see more of the Wasteland and get hints of how it ticks and what made it so.

The bad news: Visually Furiosa is a bit of a mixed bag; sometimes we get stuff worthy of its predecessor and other times we get stuff that is... less so. The colour is much more pale than the richness of FR and the cinematography is no where near the standards. Occasionally the CGI lets the film down just a bit. In Fury Road you got the impression that it was almost all practical effects even if it wasn't. In Furiosa there are sequences where I went... 'eww, yikes' as the standards of the film dropped. Only a few moments but be prepared.

The music is often absent or very lacking. The sweeping epics of Fury Road are almost gone instead we get much more background stuff or even sadly largely silent action sequences. This leads to a lack of tension, nothing edge of your seat here.

The writing and edit isn't great. The characters lack spark and bits feel missing. Miller is trying to tell a story but seems unsure of how to write characters in which one can invest. Furiosa has more ambition in its story telling and I think its execution is lacking. The core story solid but it seems a bit empty on the screen. The film jumps at times skipping over character development worthy of exploration.

In the edit i really really missed the fast cuts of Fury where Miller really built his scenes through tight production and cuts and edits where everything builds beautifully and leads to a great conclusions. Miller did this scene after scene in FR whereas in Furiosa its really lacking. Means theres not as much tension, not as many 'that was close' nor 'that was amazing' moments.

Overall I did like it. Furiosa is a good Mad Max film but its no Fury Road. I'd be surprised if the film is recognized at Oscar time, where Fury Road won 6 Furiosa might get a nomination or two in the technical but no nominations for Directing or Best Picture.

By my deeds I honour him...

By my wallet I honour George Miller, Witness Furiosa. Its worth your time and money but not more than that.