All Day Reviews

I went to see Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga with high expectations, hoping for a worthy successor to the critically acclaimed Mad Max: Fury Road. While I enjoyed the movie overall, I have to admit that it did not live up to the hype. Furiosa is a good movie, but not a masterpiece like Fury Road.

The movie follows the origin story of Furiosa, the one-armed warrior played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road, but this time portrayed by Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy. We learn how she became a captive of Immortan Joe, the tyrannical warlord who rules over the Citadel. First she ends up as a captive of Dementus, a biker warlord and main antagonist of the movie. In a world of scarcity, Dementus and his gang are entangled in a struggle for survival. One of his men stumbles onto the ‘Green Place’, a place of abundance. An adolescent Furiosa gets captured and taken to Dementus, portrayed by Chris Hemsworth, who gives a strong performance as a villain. Anya Taylor-Joy delivers an okay performance, but we’ve seen her do much better, for example in The Queen’s Gambit. Charlize Theron did a much better job of playing Furiosa in the previous movie.

However, we get presented an interesting contrast in the film: the difference between living in a place of abundance, where there is food and water for everyone, and living in desolate wasteland where everyone fights for their survival. Everyone needs to serve a purpose and sometimes have to go through terrible experiences. Women are used as sex slaves or used as human cows , while men are disposable soldiers, subject to the whims of their manipulative leaders. Furiosa is an outlier as a strong female character. She gains the respect of her peers and she competes with men as their equal. Throughout the movie we are presented with parallels between Dementus and Furiosa and it is the most interesting aspect of the story, as they both struggle with their identity and loyalty in a brutal world. This culminates in an emotional final scene between the two, which I won’t spoil here, but suffice to say that it was the highlight of the movie for me.

Another strong aspect of the movie are some of the set pieces, especially the fight on the War Rig, where Furiosa has to defend herself and her allies against an attack from raiders. The choreography is excellent and we see some creative fighting tactics, using parachutes and weapons like the ‘Bommy Knocker’. The action is fast-paced and thrilling, and reminiscent of the best moments of Fury Road.

However, the movie also has its flaws, and the biggest one for me was the overuse of CGI and green screen. One of the reasons why Fury Road was so impressive was that it used practical effects and real locations as much as possible, giving the movie a realistic and gritty feeling. Furiosa, on the other hand, relies heavily on computer-generated imagery and artificial backgrounds, which makes the movie look less authentic and more cartoonish. There were many scenes throughout the movie where I felt that the visuals were good, but not quite satisfying, knowing what Fury Road had delivered years prior.

In conclusion, Furiosa is a decent prequel that offers some insight into the backstory of one of the most iconic characters of the Mad Max franchise. It has some great performances, some exciting action sequences, and some touching moments, but it also suffers from a dependence on CGI. It is a good movie, but not a great one.

7/10