Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

The young "Furiosa" (Alyla Browne) is captured by some rogue bikers and despite the best efforts of her sharp-shooting mother is help captive by the menacing "Dementus" (Chris Hemsworth) who rather paternally calls her "Little D"! This dystopian world really consists of three powers. The "Immortan Joe" (Lachy Hulme) in an unassailable citadel where food and water are plentiful, the "Guardian of Gastown" (Peter Stephens) who runs the last refinery producing petrol and the "Bullet Farm" - a quarry. They have a loose bartering arrangement that allows each to hold their own territory and this is arrangement "Dementus" and his army of thousands wants to take control of. He does manage to secure a better deal with "Joe" but only if he trades his "Little D" as part of the bargain. Once she's been duly swapped and introduced to his harem, she determines that she needs a new ID! Years go by as she passes for a boy, moves up the food chain at the Citadel and is finally sent on war-rig duties trading gas for food. It's now that she (Anya Taylor-Joy) encounters the war-rig driver "Praeteorian Jack" (Tom Burke) and, thinking he might be a conduit for her to get back home, joins forces for some battles royal. As origin stories go, this is good end to end stuff, quickly paced and packed with action right from the beginning. Hemsworth is highly entertaining as the prose-spouting monster and there are loads of supporting characters - the likes of "Smeg", "Rictus Erectus" and "Scrotus" to characterise these gangs of violent and ruthless half-wits. ATJ doesn't really have that much to do for most of this, and has virtually no dialogue - but when she is on screen she works well with her ninja skills coming to the fore. I didn't love the ending, it drags a bit and is entirely predictable, but this holds up well for 2½ hours and the stunt work and live-action photography is impressive.

Whilst Furiosa isn't a bad action film, I suspect its lacklustre response from audiences, reflects not whats on offer but whats absent. On the upside is loads of heart stopping action, amazing cinematic's, great sets, plus strong performances from the cast. A lesser aspect of the downside is the unnecessarily drawn out back story, replete with details about the key character, no one cares about, which, in turn, leads to the main fault in this film.......ITS NOT ABOUT MAD MAX Rockatansky. Lets be honest, no one's really interested in peripheral characters or their back story, they want the REAL DEAL. That's where this film was always going to fall flat with viewing audiences. If this film had been about Mad Max with a back story covering as yet unrevealed aspects of the life of the younger and older Max, in the latter case played by the actor who made the franchise famous, Mel Gibson, then I suspect Hollywood would have a real HIT on their hands. In summary, you don't make a major film about the back story of a peripheral character from a franchise, you make the film about the MAIN character, its as simple as that. I'm amazed this wasn't obvious.

I enjoyed <em>'Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga'</em>, which is a rightful addition to the <em>'Mad Max'</em> franchise. I personally would say that the run time is way too long, like this does not need to be a 2hr 20min+ movie. With that said, I still got the desired amount of entertainment from this 2024 flick. Chris Hemsworth is outstanding, easily the most I've wanted to see a character onscreen from this series; he fits the role perfectly. Anya Taylor-Joy puts in a very good showing as well, her character doesn't say much so a lot of the performance is reliant on her visual emotions - which Taylor-Joy portrays on point. The rest of the cast are on the same level to me, all support the show well without rising near the lead two; similar-ish story for the whole franchise, in truth. Visually the movie looks cracking, while the action matches prior installments in providing the vast majority of what makes these films so worth the watch. This prequel/spin-off is one I'd put in the top bracket from this series, it's up there with <em>'Mad Max: Fury Road'</em> - which does just slightly edge ahead.