Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth inject new interest into the madness of George Miller’s post-apocalyptic, petrol-fuelled circus of cruelty.
Mad about the girl: Tom Burke and Anya Taylor-Joy
And the saga continues. As does the madness. And to be a member of the Maxilian universe, at least one deformity would seem to be de rigueur. We first met Furiosa as played by Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), a relentless, fantastical mash-up that appeared to have lost its bearings (if not its critical support). This new chapter of the Australian franchise – the fifth – has dialled down the insanity a tad and in the hands of Furiosa (or the hand of), exudes a more human centre.
We initially see Furiosa as a young girl (a transfixing Alyla Browne), whose angelic features betray the guile and fortitude of a soul three times her age. She lives in a verdant paradise, a garden of Eden far from the arid wastelands of the earlier films. And her mother and her tribe will go to inordinate lengths to protect this “place of abundance” from the road warriors that scar the terrain beyond. But after disturbing four trespassers from Bikertown, young Furiosa is kidnapped and brought to the retreat of the ruthless Dementus, played by a prosthetically unrecognisable Chris Hemsworth (complete with buck teeth and Fagin nose). The indomitable ruler of his domain, Dementus rides a chariot pulled by three motorbikes harnessed together, and he will stop at nothing to accentuate his authority. When the girl’s mother turns up to reclaim her child, her bravery is paid for with a horrific price – which her daughter is forced to watch. And so the seeds of a reckoning are sown…
An amalgamation of genres – action-thriller, dystopian drama, Western, sci-fi spectacular, torture porn, road movie – the film is hardly short of variety or imagination. Come Oscar time, the hair and make-up should win something, and the cinematographer (and desert topography) is stunning. But for all its artistry, Furiosa is a strangely empty thing, a convoy of stunts courting little more than thrills and, courtesy of the film’s nihilism, promotes a queasiness in the gut. In this franchise, human life comes shockingly cheap, sometimes just for visual effect. Yet while the hand-to-hand combat is still of the cartoonish variety (augmented by absurdly explosive sound effects), the aerodynamic stunts are genuinely awe-inspiring. But it is the presence of Anya Taylor-Joy and her lookalike Alyla Browne that grounds the drama this time round, while Hemsworth’s comic villain delivers a welcome note of levity. Yet for audiences hardened by “strong violence and injury detail” (per the BBFC’s warning), the film offers little more than a temporary high.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Alyla Browne, Lachy Hulme, Nathan Jones, Josh Helman, John Howard, Charlee Fraser, George Shevtsov, Elsa Pataky.
Dir George Miller, Pro Doug Mitchell and George Miller, Screenplay George Miller and Nico Lathouris, Ph Simon Duggan, Pro Des Colin Gibson, Ed Eliot Knapman and Margaret Sixel, Music Tom Holkenborg (aka Junkie XL), Costumes Jenny Beavan, Sound Robert Mackenzie and James Ashton, Prosthetics Des Larry Van Duynhoven.
Kennedy Miller Mitchell/Domain Entertainment/Village Roadshow Pictures-Warner Bros.
148 mins. Australia/USA. 2024. UK and US Rel: 24 May 2024. Cert. 15.
