First Reaction - Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, 2024)

George Miller unleashed the first Mad Max film on the world in 1979. Made in Australia, on a shoe string budget, it was an international hit. With that success came a bigger budget for his next film, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. It changed the landscape of action cinema upon its release in 1981, and advanced the world of Max Rockatansky into a post apocalyptic setting.

Miller may be the last of a breed of director the film industry doesn't have room for anymore. He's directed seventeen films, so far. The Max Max franchise also includes Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and Mad Max: Fury Road, which again revolutionized the action genre, and has a legitimate claim to be in conversation as the greatest action film of all time. Along the way, Miller also directed Babe and Babe: Pig in the City, two beloved children's films (which are genuinely excellent, if you don't have a bias against children's films), as well as both of the Happy Feet films, which were also big successes with family audiences. In 1987, he directed Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeifer, Cher and Susan Sarandon in the sardonically romantic comedy The Witches of Eastwick, which became another colossal hit and has dedicated fans nearly forty years after release. Toss in Lorenzo's Oil, a heartbreaking drama about family, illness and hope, and you have one of the most eclectic careers of any director working today.

It's a career in conversation with very few other directors. Robert Wise, Steven Spielberg, maybe Ridley Scott... It's a very short list of directors who've had careers whose output is as varied and as successful.

With ith Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Miller is returning to the increasingly hellish post apocalyptic landscape of The Wasteland, introduced in The Road Warrior. This is the first film Max does not appear in, and it instead acts as prequel of sorts to Fury Road, telling the origin story of Furiosa, who was essentially the main character in that film.

I had a great time in the theater with Furiosa. My first instinct is to say, I didn't walk out with the sense of awe struck wonder I did when Fury Road ended. The thing about that sentiment though, is that it's essentially expecting the impossible from two consecutive films. Fury Road is a titanic achievement in filmmaking. Furiosa is a damn good movie on its own, and the only reason it might seem to be lacking is that it is being compared to one of the few genuinely monolithic films of the last twenty years. We're not being reintroduced to this world, thirty years after the last film in the series, as we were with Fury Road. We've already been thoroughly awed by that world. That said, it's still extremely hard not to compare the two films.

What Furiosa is doing, is giving us a new mythic character in the vein of Max Rockatansky. She has been made in and by the Wasteland. Max is a remnant. He existed in the world before. Furiosa didn't. All she knows is the world that's become, after the world we recognize as our own fell. She has been shaped by the world that's become, from the beginning.

The Max Max film universe has always been operating in the mythic, and Furiosa continues that tradition. Is Miller setting up Furiosa to take over as the central character, around which to tell these mythically epic stories? It's possible, and there's no way to be sure without the director coming clean, but Furiosa gives the character the kind of origin and backstory that could easily be used as the unspoken motivation for future adventures, as the first Mad Max film did for that character. When Tom Hardy took over the role of Max in Fury Road, I had no qualms about the idea of Max becoming a character not unlike James Bond, with different actors taking it over for a few new chapters of Max's adventures. Now, I realize I'm as interested in the possibility of varying characters making their way through Miller's Wasteland, because it's Miller's approach to this variety of epic, mythical storytelling and his attention to detail in creating and expressing this world that are the real draw.

I've seen some complaints about this film relying more heavily on CGI than Fury Road did, and as much as I'm a sucker for practical effects and part of the wonder of Fury Road was the stunt work, I was invested enough in the story of Furiosa, and the quality of the CGI was high enough, that it didn't take me out of the film at any point. This is a more traditional kind of storytelling as well. Fury Road's intense dedication to visual storytelling was part of its allure. Furiosa relies more heavily on dialog for exposition, and isn't as frantic and frenetic. There are a handful of quieter moments, centering the audience in Furiosa's point of view and experience.

Anya Taylor-Joy handles herself well in the title role. She pulls off what the film needs. It's hard to say whether this is a matter of Miller's vision for the film and the character, in portraying this younger version of the character, but the difference in the intensity and presence Charlize Theron brought to the character is noticeable. Again, this could be a directorial choice, because there is a certain through line too. It's not just believable, but feels inevitable that this character becomes the one Theron plays in Fury Road. There's something about Theron's performance that made her version of Furiosa feel less theatrical than Taylor-Joy's version. Theron never feels like she's playing Furiosa. Her performance always feels authentic in each moment. There are points where Taylor-Joy does feel like she's playing Furiosa, reaching for what she thinks this character should be, as opposed to playing it as the human being this person would be given her history. This isn't to say Anya Taylor-Joy isn't giving a good performance. She is. It is to say this is a difference I felt was noticeable after having spent nine years and dozens of viewings with Charlize Theron's version of the character, and I do think that bears on the success of the film to some degree. I may feel differently about Anya Taylor-Joy's version of the character or see hints of different things on further viewings.

Then there's Chris Hemsworth. He is simply fantastic. After having lived with him playing Thor for so many years, it's great to see him unleashed with a character like this, and make no mistake, Dementus is a disgusting creation. It's clear Hemsworth came at the role with zeal and dedication. The big man is intensely interesting to watch, and he may fit the role of beefcake, but if you had any doubt before, Furiosa should convince you he has real chops. It's a fantastic performance, of a memorable character.

As I said earlier, I had a great time at the movies with Furiosa, and I would suggest seeing this on the big screen. Miller's visual imagination and talent for depicting the scope and breadth of this world makes for a feast of stunning images and visual style.