Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga faces the daunting task of following Mad Max: Fury Road, a film that lovers of the genre might describe as a “perfect” action movie.

Fury Road is breathless, breakneck, utterly without shame or restraint. It clobbers the viewer into submission with a grotesquely beautiful maximalism that sets it apart from almost every other film that has attempted something similar.

Such an epic piece really only offers its successor only two paths: to follow the footsteps of its predecessor and try to capture a similar, if not quite the same magic, or to strive for something completely new— a tonal shift that departs so convincingly from what came before that comparison is meaningless.

Furiosa chooses to do both (which is also, perhaps, neither). For long periods of the film, action and cinematography reign supreme. Like in Fury Road, story, exposition, and character are de-emphasized for the sake of a hyper-visual cinematic style. The film is drenched head-to-toe in the audiovisual desolation of The Wasteland, with a soundtrack so bare, minimalistic, and repetitive that it clearly strives to drive the viewer to the point of madness.

And yet, at other times, the story is a character drama, demanding the audience’s interest by digging into the backstories and motivations of Furiosa and her nemesis, Dementus. The plot pivots around the moments when the two are forced apart or pushed together, asking us to examine their humanity and care about their tragedy.

Unfortunately, the effect is jarring. It almost felt as if director George Miller wanted to make a moodier, more internal version of Fury Road, but the Hollywood executives who had been drawn in by its success pushed him to make it a more conventional, character-driven story.

Either approach can work- hybrid of the two does not. The stretches of quiet bleakness give so much time to breath that you get bored, while the moments of character feel underdeveloped and emotionless. There are moments of intense action, but they merely serve as unsatisfying jolts that break up the movie. The clumsiness of the film is maybe best encapsulated by decision to spend hours building up to a clash that is subsequently described through voice over (a device absent from the movie leading up to that point). The film refused to identify its own strengths and then play to them, and the result was an acute disappointment.

Should I see it?

At its best, the film is a shaky appendage to its predecessor. To enjoy it, you must be an ardent enough fan of the Mad Max universe that the simple pleasure of seeing more of it on-screen is enough to sustain your interest. To everyone else, be they the action genre faithful or curious moviegoers eager to watch anything that’s good, my advice is the same: (re)watch Fury Road.