This article contains spoilers for “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”
The contemporary blockbuster often finds itself enthralled with its own lore. There are times where every new Marvel film and television series feels like it just wants to promote the next installment. Recent Star Wars works like “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and “Ahsoka” seem to exist purely to fill the gaps in between other projects.
In an age where fandom is mainstream, consumerism dictates that an audience’s desire for more is a commodity. But at what point is there no story left to tell? This is especially the case for prequels in which the natural endpoint is the status quo of its predecessor.
“Mad Max” director George Miller is different. From its inception, the franchise has never truly invested in connecting its various films: actors playing multiple roles (sometimes in the same film), a lack of explained continuity, and characters who look far too young to have witnessed the nuclear war decades before. In the world of “Mad Max,” these serve as a feature, not a bug.
The first “Mad Max” takes place in a dystopian Australia, or “the Wasteland,” where bikers have taken to the streets to wreak havoc. “The Road Warrior” and “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” are technically sequels to this first film, yet their image of the Wasteland is one already far beyond saving.
These movies follow a simple premise: Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) appears, saves the day and once more wanders the Wasteland. “Mad Max: Fury Road,” the franchise’s fourth film, would continue this 30 years later. Max, now played by Tom Hardy, stumbles into the plot, does his part and vanishes in the crowd.
In doing so, Miller has transformed Max into something more than a mere character. He is a myth, a legend discussed by Wastlanders around the campfire as they guzzle gasoline and chew on human flesh.
There is no overarching plot and no “big bad” at the end of all of this. It is all just people finding hope and leisure in the midst of the apocalypse. Ultimately, a folk figure’s appearance and their actions are all up to the interpretation of the witness.
“Fury Road” is the epitome of this idea, as Max merely serves as a point-of-view character peering into the world of his co-protagonist. Here, that secondary main character is Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a woman seeking freedom not only for herself, but for the other women confined in a gilded oasis. The film ultimately ends with the overthrow of the warlord Immortan Joe and the establishment of a matriarchy in the Citadel, mirroring Furiosa’s own origins.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is a direct prequel to “Fury Road.” For the first time in the series, Miller creates a film with inseparable connections to its predecessor: shared protagonist, shared setting and shared cast of characters.
But it is not “Fury Road” by any means. While the 2015 film was essentially a lean and mean feature-length chase sequence, “Furiosa” is a sprawling epic, covering 15 years of the titular character’s life and the story of the Wasteland itself.
Taken from her home as a child, Furiosa (now played by Anya Taylor-Joy as an adult and Alyla Browne as a child) embarks on a quest not only to find her way back, but to get revenge on the ruthless Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) for killing her mother.
A large part of the film is devoted to explaining the backdrop, particularly the turf war between Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme, taking over from the late Hugh Keays-Byrne) and Dementus. It sets the stage for “Fury Road” just a few years after the film’s events, but that is not its primary purpose as a work.
Like the rest of the series, “Furiosa” is just as much a character study as it is an action film. Amidst all the spectacular sequences full of exploding trucks, paragliding bikers and War Boys spraying their teeth with silver paint, is a story of a woman whose life has been stolen away from her.
As a child, she watches her mother crucified by Dementus and his men before being traded to Immortan Joe to grow up to be one of his many wives. This, of course, does not last long, as the movie quickly shows Furiosa’s ambition to take control of her own life.
She runs away, disguises herself as one of the mechanics before working her way up in the ranks with the help of Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), a mentor-turned-lover and the only person to truly care for Furiosa in the Citadel.
Taylor-Joy embodies the character’s rage alongside her longing for a home she cannot return to. With just about 30 lines of dialogue, Taylor-Joy makes the most of Furiosa’s physicality, acting through facial expressions and body language. Every moment with her on screen feels like she is a powder keg, ready to explode when confronted with her mortal enemy.
Still, she also showcases the more tender side of the character. In one scene, Furiosa and Jack are captured by Dementus after an extended action sequence. Brutally injured, the two lean on each other, pressing their heads together while Dementus angrily rants about his plan being thwarted. It is a small moment, yet both the audience and the characters know what happens next. Before Jack is tortured to death and Furiosa tears her arm off to escape, the lovers share one last subtle moment of embrace all without a single word.
On the other hand, Hemsworth brings a twisted flamboyance to his role as the unhinged antagonist. At the start, Dementus is just the chatty head of a glorified biker gang with a sadism that makes him fit right at home with every other madman in the Wasteland. But throughout the 15 years, Hemsworth converts this entrepreneurial charisma into one of nihilism and hopelessness. We see a pathetic, aging leader losing his grip on his territory.
The two are pitted against each other on the road through souped-up cars and big rigs decorated with excavator claws. Miller continues to deliver on these action sequences not only through incredibly intricate choreography, but a healthy mix of death-defying practical stunts and CGI.
Composer Tom Holkenborg revives pieces of “Fury Road’s” score for these scenes, raising the audience’s blood pressure and not giving a moment to breathe until the chase ends. The heavy, industrial instrumentation blends into the sound of roaring motors and booming gunfire. Moments of intensity bleed into moments of inspiration as Furiosa triumphs.
It is a sound fitting for the Wasteland, and one that nestles itself into the expansive saga told through “Furiosa.”
However, even with how vast the Wasteland is, Miller, along with co-writer Nico Lathouris, approach depicting this world without a drop of cynicism. The current brand of franchise humor sometimes stems from self-awareness and self-deprecation when it comes to the “silly” or absurd elements of a universe. It is why superheroes have to joke about wearing spandex or why Deadpool has to walk on screen to quip about Kevin Feige.
With so many blockbusters out there, tropes have grown familiar, and it feels as though movies have to wink at an audience to get a point across. In contrast, the “Mad Max” franchise is unashamed about how bizarre it is. It will depict its cartoonish violence performed by characters named “Rizzdale Pell” and “Scabrous Scrotus” without a hint of irony.
Through it, Miller allows the audience to buy into this strange world. You could truly believe in the legends forged in this Wasteland tethered by the characters who make a difference.
By the film’s end, Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa and Theron’s Furiosa are one in the same. Two very different performances are united through a single character, as Miller mythologizes Furiosa alongside the pantheon of warriors like Max.
It is further driven by the explicit ambiguity regarding the outcome of Furiosa’s revenge, told orally through the film’s History Man (George Shevtsov), recounting the tale of the “darkest angel” in a world where written stories are obsolete.
In creating this lawless landscape, the past becomes Miller’s future. However, it is in that future without innovation that myth is created. After all, his recent film, “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” portrays how the progression of technology in the contemporary world can actually suffocate storytelling.
Yet it is this fascination that has led him to utilize invention and modern filmmaking as his means of passing these chronicles onto a starving audience. “Furiosa” is a 21st Century epic stained with blood, tragedy and heroics.
We are intended to “remember her” in the way we remember figures like Odysseus or King Arthur. The stories are riddled with truth, fiction, inconsistencies and ambiguities, but regardless, it makes us feel.
“Mad Max” was never about “curing” the apocalypse, but rather the small victories that make the end of the world slightly less painful. Every town saved and every warlord toppled is a moment of optimism in the midst of chaos.
We all wander the Wasteland aimlessly looking for hope. We sit at the campfire, telling tall tales that might inspire us, and now, it’s Miller’s turn to share his.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is currently playing in theaters.