One of the Year’s Best Adventure Films

(060624) Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a sleek, well-made, and effective post-apocalyptic dystopian action film from Australia. All the Mad Max films take place in a world after a nuclear war in which resources such as gas are so scarce that most people will not think twice about murdering their neighbors to get them.

Because of the scarcity of gas many of the best action scenes involve repurposed vehicles. The film is wonderful in reimagining how technology can be used creatively with limited resources. Each of the main vehicles is magnificent and reflects its owner. The War Rig driven by Jack is like him strong and powerful. It is built to carry heavy loads and it's equipped with a spear shooter. The Chariot, Demetrious ‘s vehicle, is a motorbike powered by a plane engine that is enormously powerful and he controls it with ropes like a chariot making him look like a great regal Roman gladiator riding into battle. While Furiosa’s vehicle the Valiant is smaller and less physically strong, it is much more agile and maneuverable like its owner.

Despite its title, the character named Mad Max does not appear much in this film, which is why some people explain the film’s disappointing box office opening. But unlike some other films or shows in which a popular male character was replaced by a female surrogate (like She-Hulk, Love and Thunder, or the last Indiana Jones) the female character here is at least as interesting as the male she replaced, and Furiosa is worthy of her own film and origin story and maybe even a whole TV series (I would watch it).

The film needs to make a fortune (around 400 million dollars) to make a profit and it is doing far less well than anticipated it was overshadowed at the box office earnings by the recent Planet of the Apes) and Kung Fu Panda sequels. The filmmakers may have waited too long to release a follow-up (nine years after the last film in the series) or Anya Taylor Green may not have a big enough name, and this is a real pity.

Furiosa is a prequel to Mad Max Fury Road (2015) and tells the origin story of its terrific and visually interesting protagonist, Furiosa. She was played in Fury Road magnificently by Charlise Theron in this one as a child by Alyla Browne and as an adult by Anya Taylor-Joy. Taylor-Joy (The Queen’s Gambit) has never once given a bad performance and she stands out and is particularly great here. She always makes her roles better just because she is playing them.

But all three actresses playing Furiosa are or were excellent, and the character is one of the most exciting badass female action protagonists in any medium ranking right up there with Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, Gail Gadot’s Wonder Woman, Summer Glau’s River Tan in Firefly, Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Conner, and Tank Girl (I know I’m one of the few Tank Girl supporters). Compared to Furiosa, Bree Larson’s Captain Marvel is just an uninteresting cardboard cutout with an attitude.

This is the latest entry in the Mad Max series which included the comparatively low-budget but effective Mad Max (79), the even better The Road Warrior (81), the spottier Beyond Thunderdome (85), and the best in the series, Mad Max Fury Road which is about perfect. In many ways, this is a superb action/drama, but it does not top Fury Road which I think will be forever seen as an action classic.

Demetrius (Chris Hemsworth) is head of a ruthless pirate-like motorcycle gang that rules over a place called, appropriately enough, the Wasteland. His gang members kidnap Furiosa and kill her mom. She spends most of the film trying to get back to her homeland and getting revenge on Demetrus. He says he wants to keep her around because of her “purposeful savagery,” but he also could use someone he can use to project his warm feelings toward his dead daughter. Although Furiosa hates him, she allows him to take her under her wing and he becomes a kind of surrogate father figure.

Hemsworth makes a terrific, compelling bad guy and he gets to flex his acting muscles playing a complex and sympathetic villain, Demetrius who is as much a victim of circumstance as Furiosa herself. He lost his family too and always carries around a teddy bear to remind him of his slaughtered daughter. His fine performance here goes a long way to redeeming his silly and humiliating role in Thor: Love and Thunder, and this is by far his finest performance (and I do think he was a perfect Thor).

One of the best scenes in the film evokes the classic Taxi Driver scene in which Travis Bickle shaves his hair into a mohawk and threatens his image in the mirror to raise his confidence before an attempted assassination. Furiosa puts black grease on her face which looks like war paint and cuts her hair. Like Travis she changes her appearance to reflect a change in her personality when she takes on a new more savage persona, showing she has become an animalistic battle goddess.

With her new androgynous look, she passes as a male and fools some warriors for a time which helps keep her alive. The main character passing as male to survive was also a plot device was also used in Titane.
After her separation from Demetrius, Furiosa finds a far more moral mentor in the guise of Jack (Tom Burke) who is a mostly positive Mad Max-like figure. He is a mighty fighter and great driver (she is the better marksman) who vows to teach Furiosa everything he knows so she can get back to her birthplace. Her lush green birthplace Vuvaline (sounds suspiciously like vulva) is an almost perfect world like Shangri-La or Zion and it is called the Great Place of Many Mothers because the women there are usually fertile while people everywhere else have trouble having babies. The whole situation is tragic because as we found out in the chronologically later Fury Road, the tropical paradise would later become a dark, dead wasteland dominated by crows. When Furiosa saw what had become of the land in the other film saw what became of her promised land she screamed.

But the relationship with her mentor Jack is underdeveloped and unlike the first Black Panther film, we don’t get to see her go through nearly enough of her training and trials. But at least she is shown to have real motivations and we know why she is how she is. But this is already a two-hour and 45-minute movie, and they could not include everything.

The film is also interesting for its theological implications and its use of mythic symbols from many different religious systems. When Furiosa takes a bite from her apple despite her sister’s warning she is immediately taken away (or in a sense exiled) from Eden. She is forcibly taken from a paradise society run by women where they can escape male violence to a hellish outside world run by mostly brutal, animalistic men. In The Wasteland women are kept as breeding stock and they are slaughtered if they do not produce male heirs (Henry the 8th would approve.) So, the film seems to suggest that a perfect world would be run by women. But this is closer to a pagan feminist utopia than a Judeo-Christian one.

The film also has several scenes in which characters are hung in trees evoking Christ’s crucifixion, but this also evokes the tree crucifixion of Odin from Norse mythology, and several characters also mention Valhalla. Also, since Furiosa’s mom is named Mary, it might end up that Furiosa will become s some kind of Messiah figure.

This film may not be a thrilling nonstop action roller coaster ride like Mad Max Fury Road, and that film has better pacing, but Furiosa has better acting and character development. Overall, this is surely one of the best adventure films of the year and it will please fans of dystopian sci-fi and action film genre lovers.