Review: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Furiosa holds the tenuous position of following up Mad Max: Fury Road, the defining moment of the 2020s. It would be hard to hold failure against it, but at the same time, for Furious to be anything less than sheer brilliance would be devastating.
So why the fuck is Furiosa a better movie than Fury Road?
Perhaps part of it is how Fury Road makes itself half of Fury Road‘s story. After seeing Furiosa, you’ll see Fury Road as the second part of a greater story about Furiosa. This franchise is no longer about the titular Max – it’s the story of Joseph from Genesis, a tale of a woman stripped of the Eden in which she was born, gouging the landscape in search of something new. There’s no Manifest Destiny because there’s no destination; these last two movies are the story of a woman’s cries of revolt in an endless desert.
And Furiosa explores this angle more than its predecessor, which was ultimately a triumphalist thrill ride. That’s by no means a flaw of Fury Road — it’s why everybody rightly fell in love with it. But Furiosa challenges the myth of the badass – as my girlfriend Janet pointed out, it asks “oh, you want the myth of a heroic girlboss? Well, here’s that with all the fucked up monstrosity that entails.” Moreso than Fury Road, Fury Road explores the contours of the patriarchal societies of the Wasteland. It has much more to say about the experience of the oppressed than Fury Road did. Hell, it’s more Biblical and difficult than Fury Road got in its best moments.
I don’t want to say much more because you really should just go watch this movie. Furiosa allows its protagonist to be an operator of the great mechanism of history, the “fifth rider of the apocalypse.” It’s beautifully structured, explicitly invoking Eden at the beginning and the end, and transcends its predecessors. This is as good as blockbusters get.
June 7, 2024 @ 8:32 am
I was blown away by this. Left the cinema trembling with emotion. Dune left me cold despite wanting to like it, but this is the real deal. Epic, cinematic storytelling at its best.
An absolutely stunning achievement that is superior to Fury Road and embellishes the lore, showing us Gas Town and the Bullet Farm (only mentioned in FR). Action more imaginative and expansive. Moments of breathtaking beauty. And pleasingly, nastily as violent as it can be within the rating.
Furiosa’s story mirrors that of Max in the first film. Revenge. Max was left cold and dead inside by his vengeance, only learning to come out of his shell (a bit) over the events of the next 2 films. (Not Fury Road though. I don’t buy Tom Hardy as Max; in my headcanon he’s a grown-up Feral Kid). Furiosa walks a similar (Fury) road, but it’s a more redemptive arc. But only slightly.
I love how, despite the time between these films and the improvements in technology, they visibly exist in the same universe. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth having fun and with an incredible prosthetic conk!) could have rode straight into Mad Max 2 or Thunderdome on his motorbike chariot!
I cheered when the Doof Warrior appeared. Can’t remember last time I cheered in the cinema.
Film of the year.
June 8, 2024 @ 8:46 pm
I haven’t seen Fury Road in long enough to say for sure that I disagree with your assessment that Furiosa is superior, but that’s a hell of a bold take and you argue it well.
I have to say, I really hope any future Max/Furiosa movies take place after Fury Road instead of serving as prequels to it, not least because Furiosa is already close to the best possible outcome of that approach. The box office response to Furiosa certainly makes my blood boil at the state of popular cinema, but hopefully one positive outcome is that it could convince Miller to move forward with the series’ chronology rather than continue to look backwards.
(Just FYI, I think there’s places you meant to say Furiosa in the text and put Fury Road instead?)
June 8, 2024 @ 8:54 pm
(And of course, I check after I leave my comment and find articles about how the claims of Furiosa’s box office failure are overblown…)
June 9, 2024 @ 12:02 am
I am okay with one more prequel on the condition that they make it about Max and CGI-interpolate him throughout the movie so that he’s played by Mel Gibson in the first scene and inexplicably ages over the course of the movie into Tom Hardy.
June 9, 2024 @ 3:46 am
Clearly, a very serious suggestion that’s guaranteed to turn out spectacularly well, from the casting announcement to the CGI. Bonus points if they have Mel Gibson as he looks now rather than de-aging him at the start, to make the age gap stand out all the more.
July 1, 2024 @ 8:51 am
Well i.think the movie was great!!!