VERDICT: Fails to meet the impossible task of matching, let alone surpassing, its legendary predecessor, but George Miller’s action sequences still pack a punch, even when they reek of déjà vu.
The worst thing a prequel can do is send a familiar character on a forced march to inevitability, setting up a story we already know while providing no additional insight or illumination into someone we have already met. The worst thing a sequel can do is to laboriously recreate the highlights of its predecessor, only without the shock and delight of the new. Furiosa is guilty of both sins.
Director and co-writer George Miller is perhaps this generation’s most virtuoso choreographer of vehicular mayhem, but this time he’s up against an auteur he can’t top — himself, having created Mad Max: Fury Road, one of the most astonishingly exciting and imaginative epics of the 21st century. We’ve truly been down this road before, and none of Miller’s many talents can overcome the sense of familiarity that he’s already done all of this, and better.
As portrayed by Charlize Theron in Fury Road, Furiosa was a thrilling addition to the action canon, a character who has a tortured past while still nurturing hope for a better future. It’s entirely possible that a prequel could have dug into this complex woman and revealed new shadings, but Miller and returning co-writer Nico Lathouris don’t seem particularly interested in enriching her backstory. Young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) is snatched from the Green Place and held prisoner by wicked gang leader Dementos (Chris Hemsworth), and before long, the movie takes us back to the Citadel and Gastown, to Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and the War Boys.
By the time Furiosa grows up and is played by Anya Taylor-Joy, it’s apparent that the movie doesn’t have many ideas about the character outside of her desire both to return home and to wreak revenge upon Dementos. Miller relishes getting the band back together – according to IMDb, an astonishing 137 cast and crew members who worked on Fury Road have returned for Furiosa – but the director must have promised an easier shoot than the exceedingly difficult Fury Road production, chronicled in Kyle Buchanan’s fascinating book Blood, Sweat & Chrome.
Whereas nearly all the stunts and effects in the previous movie were practical and analog (and thus as difficult as possible), Furiosa often throws in CG animation and obvious green-screen work; these shortcuts might have meant an easier shoot, but they represent another way in which the shadow of Fury Road looms large.
Anyone buying a ticket just to see spectacular car chases will certainly get them, with editor Margaret Sixel once again cutting elaborate action sequences into ballets of adrenaline. Whether it’s the War Rig being attacked by land and by air or a trap that turns into a shootout, the big action set pieces in Furiosa deliver, even as the narrative doesn’t.
The costumes by Jenny Beavan and the production design from Colin Gibson (both Oscar winners for Fury Road) steal the show here; the actors do what they can with the material. Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa doesn’t talk much, but her expressive eyes pick up a lot of slack. Dementos isn’t nearly as interesting a villain as Immortan Joe — Joe might be evil incarnate, but at least he’s good at strategy and manipulation, while Dementos is merely a bully and a boob — although Hemsworth goes as entertainingly big and broad as his prosthetic nose.
In the pantheon of George Miller–directed sequels, Furiosa falls closer to Happy Feet Two than the triumph of Babe: Pig in the City. It’s hard to top perfection; it’s the reason why there’s no Citizen Kane, Too, or Still Singin’ in the Rain.
