Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Fury Road was a masterpiece of the action genre and it was so high-powered that it wouldn’t even be impossible to offer more of the same. Though Furiosa is a return to the familiar parched desert world in which water, gasoline and ammunition are worth more than human lives, it also goes its own way and is thus a rather different film in terms of narrative. However, it is still almost as intensely effective as its predecessor and it also offers perfect, breathtaking action, but that isn’t the focal point of everything this time, as attention is concentrated on the characters for a change. The actors are great and the film abounds with creative screenwriting and directing ideas. George Miller has again served up an epic, energetic, uncompromising and entertaining action spectacle in a way that one might expect from directors less than half his age. (22/05/2024)

I thoroughly enjoyed Fury Road in the cinema nine years ago and, to be honest, I don't know if I've ever seen a more action-packed film. Furiosa raised great expectations in me precisely because of that cinematic experience and also because of the female lead. After watching it, I have to say that I was probably expecting a slightly different film, but I don't mean that in a negative way. Furiosa is again full of brisk action with imaginative choreography – this is especially dominated by the tanker chase scenes and the confrontation in the mine – and tries through a kind of "biblical plane" not to be just a pure action film. I was surprised to see Anya Taylor-Joy arrive on the scene relatively late, and I would fault the film for having too tidy an ending for my taste. Still, this is a high-quality audiovisual spectacle that would be a sin not to see on the big screen, where it certainly belongs. (05/06/2024)

Not to repeat himself, George Miller went about it differently this time and decided to focus on what he didn't have time for last time, and we get to know the characters and the world better. But that doesn't mean there's no action. There is action, and what kind of action. The first act alone puts most recent action movies to shame, and it's still just getting started. In short, Furiosa is an excellent film, with a great Anya Taylor-Joy, who actually enters the scene perhaps somewhere in the middle, and a perfect villain played by Chris Hemsworth. I absolutely love it when actors use make-up to help them become someone else entirely, and Hemsworth has done just that to perfection. He's erratic, insane (how else), but he's also hilarious and, in his own way, ridiculous as he speeds through the desert on his post-apocalyptic tricycle. He clearly enjoyed the filming, and I enjoyed the result. (25/05/2024)

Furiosa was still a child when she was taken from her home. She grew up surrounded by violence and madness, but she never stopped wanting revenge. In the wasteland, a war is brewing between two armies of brutal dictators, and Furiosa intends to be on the front lines. George Miller returns to a harsh post-apocalyptic world, but in a slightly different way than you might expect. There's still plenty of action, and there are so many ideas in a single scene that other Hollywood blockbusters could live off of it for years. However, this time around there are more complex characters and, above all, a greater effort to immerse yourself in a world full of chaos and discover that it too has its own order. Miller delivers another one of his visually lavish and uncompromising visions, and he knows he can afford not to pander to audiences who expect nothing more than more of what they got last time. (22/05/2024)

An excellent flashback to Fury Road. It lacks Max Rockatansky, it lacks the frenetic pace, but the story is more substantial. Furiosa explains the laws of the imagined world. George Miller seems to realize that he skipped over a lot of things and presented them as fact without showing them. He describes a fragile symbiosis that is disrupted by Chris Hemsworth's Dementus, one of the best creations of his career. If it's true that the previous Mad Max was mostly about Furiosa then Furiosa is mostly about the foxy Dementus. He's the one who shows the world turning into an oil-soaked desert. Anya Taylor-Joy is good, but the little girl who plays her when she was young is even better. Weaker music and slightly worse visual effects. Still, very good. (24/05/2024)