FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (R)
George Miller is a madman. This lunatic with piping hot guzz-o-line for blood is not only one of the most prolific action filmmakers of his generation, or any generation, but every ten years or so he comes back to reset the cinematic zeitgeist with another apocalyptic masterwork. He did it once with the Best Picture nominated jet fuel injection fever dream “Mad Max: Fury Road”, and he is back again with another, far grander, decade-spanning epic of revenge, redemption, and road rage.
The broken saga of Max, a former cop who lost his family to marauders and spends his days traversing the post-apocalyptic Wasteland, is one of a lonely, broken man ever searching for a cause worth fighting for in a world gone insane. Originally played by Mel Gibson (“Mad Max,” “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior,” “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome”) and in “Fury Road” by Tom Hardy (“Dark Knight Rises,” “Warrior”) at his mumbly grumbliest; George Miller’s Mad Max films are the pinnacle of Ozploitation junkyard jammers, with dozens of stunt performers smashing hundreds of cars, trucks, motorcycles together in a ballet of glorious manmade vehicular mayhem. Max’s world is fire and blood and at their best, the Mad Max films spit high-grade diesel straight into our eyes and open them to a world of chrome plated preposity.
With “Fury Road,” Miller crafted his opus. With his latest creation, Miller reaches for more; finding his greatest muse not in the wandering ravings of a madman but in the quest of a young woman ripped from her home and forged in the fire of despair to become “the fifth rider of the apocalypse”.
This is “FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA.”
Following the life of the “Fury Road” standout character, this film shows how a young Furiosa living in a beatific “Green Place” became an axel grease streaked, robot arm hefting, War Rig wielding, angel of chaos, wounded by hope and fueled by revenge. “Furiosa” is an epic in five distinct parts, a far cry from the prolonged chase sequence of “Fury Road”. Taking over a role originated and made iconic by Charlize Theron (“Young Adult”, “Atomic Blonde”), Alyla Browne (“Sting”) and Anya Taylor-Joy (“The VVitch”, “The Queen’s Gambit”) provide a pair of masterclass near silent performances, trading off chapters seamlessly as this decades spanning story takes young Furiosa from her home in a place of abundance and into the bowels of a Hellmouth of mechanized malice. If the character of Furiosa wasn’t one of cinema’s great creations with Theron’s portrayal alone, Browne and Taylor-Joy work in tandem to solidify her placement among the great heroes of modern myth.
Mad Max movies aren’t supposed to make you cry. I had tears pouring out of me multiple times throughout “Furiosa,” often in reaction to the sheer kinetic bombast of the filmmaking, but mostly for the emotional core that the film unearths and mines for maximum effect. Miller showcases his patented technical wizardry while exuding a deftness of tone and emotion that feels operatic and primal within the unfettered savagery of the Wasteland. With a dazzlingly oafish and terrifying turn from Chris Hemsworth (“Thor: Love and Thunder”) as the ginger war lord Dr. Dementus, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” does the impossible by living up to its legacy while ravaging a new and blistering trail all it’s own.
See it BIG. See it LOUD. See it NOW.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is playing at The Broad Theater, The Prytania Theater Uptown, and The Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
