'Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga' A Review

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a post-apocalyptic action movie, a prequel to 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road focusing on the character Furiosa(Alyla Browne/Anya Taylor-Joy). The child Furiosa is taken from "The Green Place" where she lives by members of the Biker Horde led by Dementus(Chris Hemsworth). She's eventually traded to Immortan Joe(Lachy Hulme) and circuitously makes her way to being a member of the War Rig.

Taylor-Joy is serviceable but doesn't have much to do and struggles to fill the shoes of the originator of the role Charlize Theron, she is also hamstrung by the fact the first half of the movie Alyla Browne plays the role as an even younger version of the character. She seems lost in the performance and the script gives her virtually nothing to hold on to. Hemsworth is even further adrift. His charm is not present, his humor is incongruous, there is virtually no menace conveyed. It is a portrayal in desperate need of direction. Hemsworth is throwing everything he has at it and its too much, too unfocused. Hulme isn't in it much but, with all respect to him, Hugh Keays-Byrne he is not. Many of the returning actors from Fury Road revisiting their characters seem confused and are pretty much across the board ineffective.

Visually the movie looks cheap, the CGI is obvious particularly in wideshots, and all the energy and visceralness of Fury Road is absent. Even for the scenes actually shot on location it looks like a soundstage with CGI background. I don't know how they managed that but all-in-all it looks terrible. The script is almost tortuously derivative. The Furiosa backstory the audience lushly filled in in their imaginations with Charlize Theron's wonderful portrayal are rendered here thuddingly, pedantically, unoriginally specific. The script is clunky, we see things and revisit characters we have no desire or need for. There seems to have been a profound confusion as to why Fury Road was good and what audiences liked about it. Here we plod through plot beats we see coming a mile away, we are dragged through exposition we have absolutely no need of. The action is limited, not particularly exciting, and most importantly has no emotional stakes.

We saw the culmination of Furiosa's incredible journey in Fury Road so what does Furiosa have to say? Nothing.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

Don't See It.