FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (2024) – Epic thrill ride despite an underwhelming Anya
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Furiosa is a prequel to the last Mad Max movie, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). It provides the compelling background story of Furiosa, a character that was introduced in that movie played by Charlize Theron. As good as Charlize was in that film, she was however not asked to reprise her role here as she was deemed too old to play her younger self here. Instead, Anya Taylor-Joy gets to reimage this iconic character. Under the guilding hands of ace director George Miller, Anya is more than capable of handling this tough character role. What is surprising is that she actually turns out a bit underwhelming buried under all the action and backstory! Let me try to analyse why this happened …
The first thing that struck me was that Anya doesn’t appear on screen for almost the entire first half of the movie! This is because it focuses on a much younger Furiosa who was played by child actress Alyla Browne. I must acknowledge here that Alyla did a great job with this portion of the movie. She has an uncanny resemblance to Anya, and gives a powerful and memorable performance with the minimum of dialouge. When Anya takes over to play the older Furiosa, her character has already been established and her part ended up being more typical super heroine jumping from trucks to cars while dodging bullets and jets of fire from fire throwers. But Furiosa fortunately is not just about her. It introduces us to an earlier period of the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max as originally envisioned by George Miller in the 1979 when the franchise begun. The desert landscape and some set pieces in the middle of the desert were awe-inspiring. George Miller proves that he has still got the chops to get the job done at the ripe old age of 79! The set pieces and action sequences are incredible to watch and must have been daunting to stage and capture on film. He has been doing this since the first Mad Max in 1979 and now some 44 years later, still manages to amaze with his visions.
To make the plot more interesting we have some vile antagonists for us to loathe in the form of the demented Dr Dementus (played by Chris Hemsworth), the disgustingly vile Immorten Joe and his army of War Boys. Some of these characters have been introduced already in the last film Fury Road but they still look as unpleasantness as ever. Chris Hemsworth has been playing the hero and comedy routine so often that he is totally unconvincing as the bad guy. No amount of makeup or wardrobe design would change that.
Furiosa has lots of great action sequences played over an eye-popping utopian landscape, with a reasonably compelling story and character to root for. I loved it for the most parts but I have to admit that there were times the mayhem on screen can get a bit numbing and I get confused over who is fighting whom! Perhaps a deliberate ploy by the film makers to give its viewers reason for repeat viewings.