That’ll Do, George
George Miller juices his Mad Max franchise once again, though we still don’t know if this is before or after Thunderdome.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Director: George Miller • Writers: George Miller, Nico Lathouris
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Alyla Browne, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Lachy Hulme
Australia / USA • 2hrs 28mins
Opens Hong Kong May 23 • IIB
Grade: B+
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga may not have the unhinged (feminist) lunacy of Mad Max: Fury Road, or the lean, unhinged viciousness of The Road Warrior (still my favourite despite the presence of assface), but it is a crazily entertaining slab of fuel-injected nonsense – with a dash of intriguing world-building thrown in for good measure. Even though you can never un-see the cherry pit scene in The Witches of Eastwick and Three Thousand Years of Longing’s guts didn’t match its stellar visuals, Mad Max remains writer-director George Miller’s defining franchise. (lest we forget, he produced Babe and Happy Feet). Five films in and he’s only taken one minor mis-step, because those kids in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome turned it into a totally different movie that not even its magnificent mullets could save. But credit where it’s due: Miller started expanding the apocalyptic society that turned the scrappy 1980s cult classic into a minor phenomenon in that film. The series may not hold the juggernaut status of Marvel or Harry Potter, but Mad Max is a thing.
And Fury Road was lightning in a bottle. On top of which, it had Mad Max in the title but it was really about Furiosa, who co-star Charlize Theron turned into the break-out character. She was the Humungus or the Aunty Entity of Fury Road so it’s no surprise we’ve gotten a prequel focused on her and her mechanical arm. Also, she murdered everyone in the 2015 film, so there really is only prequel left. Furiosa is wisely distinct from Fury Road. The tone is familiar, the landscapes are (mostly) recognisable and the visuals are in lockstep with the brand – as is the deafening roar of revving engines – but it’s formally discrete, and could easily be a standalone film about a woman growing up and surviving in the Wasteland, and the moments that expose who she truly is.
Long before she was Imperator to Citadel overlord Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), Furiosa (Alyla Browne in an amazing bit of casting) was a young Vuvalini girl living peacefully in the Green Place – the same Green Place she finds rotted out when she looks more like Theron years later. While sneaking peaches from the trees growing in the verdant haven she sees interlopers sniffing around the Green Place’s edges. She manages to warn the colony but still gets scooped up by a raider and whisked off to biker warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, obviously having a ton of fun). Her mother Mary Jo (Charlee Fraser, Anyone But You) pursues her to nomads’ camp, and like any good superhero, Furiosa is traumatised by a parent’s death. Adopted by Dementus, Furiosa grows up, escapes her psycho captor, discovers Immortan Joe’s wives, escapes that psycho captor, poses as a boy, joins Immortan Joe’s army of grease monkeys, turns into Anya Taylor-Joy (totally blowing past her It Girl designation), rises through the ranks, and maybe finds a boyfriend in Citadel driver Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) – all along plotting revenge on Dementus.
But nothing’s that easy, nor is it free of double crosses, warlord power-moves and many, many, many, many dusty high-speed chases in super-charged trucks and Mustangs on steroids. A great deal of Furiosa unfolds while Furiosa is a child, and a child locked in a cage at that, so Miller and OG co-writer Nico Lathouris pump up the social (dis)order and hierarchy aspects of the narrative, giving Joe’s rivals and/or fragile allies The People Eater (John Howard, returning from Fury Road), who runs Gas Town and therefore controls fuel supply, and The Bullet Farmer (Lee Perry) – ditto but for ammunition – more integral story beats. Broken into five cryptically titled chapters, it also provides context for the story places, parts and events we already know, as well as for Furiosa’s identity. This is how you build origins.
Those details still take a back seat to the visuals, this time a bit more reliant on CGI than Fury Road was, but nonetheless still boggling. Gravity and physics are once again given a giant middle finger, and Dementus may have the greatest chariot of all time. Even with nearly a decade between this and the last instalment, and even with Miller now pushing 80 (!) he’s not interested in going for a quiet, esoteric stroll through his Wasteland. Miller is a robust octogenarian, and still a master of bleak humanity, wounded souls and ripshit nutty action set pieces. The desert of New South Wales is rendered gorgeously – and menacingly – by cinematographer Simon Duggan (Warcraft), taking over for John Seale, looking particularly dusty-sexy when Mary Jo gives chase after young Furiosa, and again when Jack (unwittingly harkening back to “Two days ago I saw a vehicle that’d haul that tanker…”) and Furiosa hit the road in the souped up War Rig for the first time. And of course, like any good Mad Max movie, the vivid supporting characters all have goofy names like Big Jilly, Toe Jam, Pissboy, Hazz the Valiant, Immortan Joe’s doctor, The Organic Mechanic (Angus Sampson) and his sons, Scrotus (Josh Helman) and Erectus (Nathan Jones). Priceless. Bottom line Furiosa is a lot of movie. It’s not as quite exquisitely exhausting as Fury Road, but it’s built on the same durable chassis. It’s just got a shiny new engine to drive it. No idea what could be next, and that’s a good thing. — DEK