FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (2024)
“The question is, do you have it in you to make it epic?”
Director: George Miller
Writers: George Miller, Nick Lathouris
Cinematography: Simon Duggan
Editors: Eliot Knapman, Margaret Sixel
Music: Tom Holkenborg
Notable Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Anya Taylor-Joy, Tom Burke, Nathan Jones, Josh Helman, Alyla Browne
Two Chris Hemsworth movies in a row, and neither is directed by Michael Mann? Never thought I’d see the day, but here we are.
Here. We. Fucking. Are.
I’ll be up front with you, I’ve never been a fan of the Mad Max series of films. The first film was released in 1979, second in 1981, culminating in 1985 with the craptastic Thunderdome flick. The series has its die-hards, and I guess I can see the appeal, even if it never directly appealed to me personally. There was a certain anarchic, decidedly un-Hollywood feel to the films, at least the first two. I just never grokked to it. Never been a car guy, never really been a big post-apocalypse guy.
What do you want from me?
Fans would have to then wait 30 years for the next entry, Mad Max: Fury Road, which took the series in a bold, brash, and positively bonkers direction. Maybe not great drama, but great spectacle and a truly wild ride.
Fury Road was easily a top 5 cinematic experience for me. I remember sitting in the theater, not really knowing what to expect when the lights went down, and being absolutely blown away by what was unfolding on screen. In the 1ST 5 Minutes, I was worried Miller was blowing his load too quickly, I couldn’t see how he could keep topping himself, but keep topping himself he did, at least until the middle section where they get stuck in a blue filter for half an hour. But that first hour… WOW. The War Boys, Immortan Joe, blood bags, guzzoline, milkers, breeders, the dude with the guitar. It was something else. But you’ll notice one thing missing from my list… Charlize Theron as Furiosa.
Theron burst on to the scene in the late 90’s in flicks like The Devil’s Advocate and… and… well, a lot of crap, but The Devil’s Advocate was great and she was great in it. Her cherubic face lent her performance a sweetness that stood in stark contrast to the horrors her character was forced to endure. A few years later, she really attained new heights when she starred as the female serial killer, Aileen Wournos, in the truly great Patty Jenkins film, Monster.
Donning facial prosthetics, Theron transformed herself into the embodiment of white trash shitbaggery. It was, to put it lightly, a revelation, for which she was awarded the highest honor Hollywood bestows.
In 2005, she starred in the underrated North Country, and then… that was it for her. Something happened. As her face thinned out, and she lost that cherubic sweetness, something turned cold. Cold as ice. If I didn’t know better, I’d think one of those demons from The Devil’s Advocate possessed her and was slowly corrupting her soul.
If I didn’t know better…
It was remarkable how quickly she went from being one of the best actresses to someone whose films I assiduously avoided. It peaked with the trailer for that awful film, Young Adult. Fuck did that trailer grind my gears. It was one of those flicks almost invented in a lab to specifically piss me the fuck off.
All’s a long way of saying when Mad Max: Fury Road came out, I saw it in spite of her, not because of. And I’d imagine many people who saw that film went because of Mad Max, or Tom Hardy, or action car shit, but I can’t imagine many people who would otherwise be uninterested in plunking down their hard earned cash doing so solely because Theron was in the film. It’s certainly possible, but it had to be a distinct minority of the audience for that film. Simply put, Theron has never put asses in seats. Even when she was good, a box office draw she was not.
Which is why it was odd when they announced they’d be making a film centered around her character, Furiosa, as the next installment. I get the cash grab aspect of making a sequel to Fury Road, but why choose the least interesting character in the whole film to base a new movie around? Is it the whole girlboss bullshit they keep shoving down our throats? Where 98 pound anorexics are punching out 250 pound dudes with one punch? The fucking morons in Hollywood keep trying to make this happen, and it gets more ludicrous with each iteration, but Furiosa may be its perfected form.
This film has ZERO reason to exist. Even as a cash grab it fails spectacularly, because NO ONE was asking for this film to be about this character. Chicks don’t like these flicks, and dudes don’t want to see chicks “kicking ass,” not really, no matter what they may tell you when they’re trying to get in your pants. You got Anya Taylor-Joy running around like she’s Sigourney fucking Weaver. But you know what, there’s only one Sigourney Weaver, and Anya ain’t it.
And neither is Charlize Theron. Atomic Blonde? Give me a fucking break. But be that as it may, fine, you want to make a film centered around Theron’s character, and then you RECAST the part?!?!
“Well, it shows her history, they can’t have Theron playing herself at 18!”
AND? They WROTE this fucking movie, created it out of their little heads, THEY were the ones who decided to make it about a younger Furiosa, necessitating the recasting. Not only do they choose the most boring character to build a film around, they choose some waif with very little acting chops, not that she really needs to act in this as all she mainly does is use those wide set eyes to connote… something. I don’t know. I’m sure Ms. Taylor-Joy is a nice girl, she seems sweet in interviews, but it’s clear she was totally lost in this flick, and who could blame her?
Even Hemsworth, usually reliable, gives one of the worst performances in his short career. He too seems totally lost as to the kind of film they’re making and what exactly the tone is. Miller either came up with or allowed Hemsworth to wear a ridiculous prosthetic nose and fake teeth to play his character, which undercuts any attempt at villainy. Which is then further exacerbated by being paried with a ridiculous accent and vocal intonation. I was embarrassed for Hemsworth while watching this.
Here we got this new Australian superstar, a dude with legit acting skill, getting to work with Australian legend George Miller on the most well-known Australian film series ever made, and he is served up a gigantic steaming pile of dog shit. Even the mighty Thor could not save this garbage. That’s two film series now where Hemsworth was saddled with a piss poor sequel to a truly great predecessor. He really deserves better.
Now, having said all this, you may be wondering, could this awfulness be detected in the 1ST 5 Minutes?
What the fuck do you think?
But let’s take a look anyway, shall we?
1ST 5 MINUTES
The WB logo accompanied by the bass heavy revving of engines. Over credits, we hear audio clips of people talking with increasing urgency about the veritable end of the world as we know it. Then the title card with a music sting, followed by a black and white shot of trees bending from a nuclear blast. The last audio clip, “We have become half-life.” Ok…
Then we see an old man who we will come to know as History Man, spouting some inane dialogue that’s meant to sound profound. Fuck is this guy one of the WORST inclusions in the film. Not sure if the actor sucks or not, he seems game, but the writing for him is SO BAD! Obvious, on the nose, pedantic. Fucking AWFUL. Anytime History Man shows up in this film, get ready to barf. Can’t believe Miller thought this was a good idea. Mind boggling.
And then, and THEN, we get the first of what will turn out to be many CHAPTER TITLE CARDS! Holy shit, was this thing designed to piss me off? I fucking hate chapters in films. It’s a movie, not a fucking book! We’re barely 2 minutes into this thing and I am hating life.
Then we cut to space, in orbit around the Earth, until we zoom in on Australia. Quite unexpected in a film like this, but narratively speaking, what’s the point of this shot? To show the green area Furiosa comes from? Unnecessary. But I do like how it opens up the world a bit, apropos of the “saga” in the title.
We then cut to two little girls, one is in a tree trying to pick a fruit while the other is on the ground, worried, wanting to get back home. She calls up to the girl in the tree, “Furiosa!” Fuck me. This chick’s birth name is fucking Furiosa?! Why? WHY? Why, in this benevolent place that is an oasis amongst the ruins, would they name a child FURIOSA??!! It made sense in Fury Road that someone with black paint on their head and a mechanical arm that drives something called a War Rig would be named Furiosa. Much like all these other assholes in the movie that have weird names. But it’s not their fucking birth name! (Can’t wait for the sequel where we see Dr. Dementus as a child and find out his birth name was Dementus!) Already I am rolling my eyes at this bullshit. A terrible sign.
Young Furiosa hears something and looks to see three bad looking dudes on motorcycles, up to no good. They shouldn’t be there, as this place is a secret, but now they’ve found it and they could take the info back to whatever psycho they work for. Furiosa goes to cut the gas lines on their bikes and gets caught and kidnapped in the process. She uses a whistle to alert the others that there is trouble, and her mother sets off to rescue her (in what will turn out to be the first of many incredibly BORING chase sequences in this film).
Let me get this straight, we have this place that is a total secret, that is the only fertile land left, seemingly, inhabited by people that would all be summarily executed if one of the biker/psycho gangs found them, and they have NO SECURITY WHATSOEVER!? No watchtower? No lookout? No fucking nothing?
Even more ridiculous when you see how skilled the women are with weapons and the like. Clearly, they know how to fight and defend themselves, but they don’t know how to set up some simple security? Incredibly dumb. Whereas Fury Road started with a bang, Furiosa starts with an incredibly lazy, eye-rolling whimper.
And that closes out the 1ST 5 Minutes of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Obviously, we already know this film is going to be fucking terrible. History Man, chapter cards, obvious action beats, lame dialogue, boring boring BORING.
I’d normally take the flick off at this point, but for you, I suffer.
The rest of the flick
And suffer I did. Goddamn is this movie bad. Formless, shapeless, meandering, and above all, as entertaining as hammered dog shit.
Eventually one of the Raiders manages to bring Furiosa back to his boss, the aforementioned Chris Hemsworth as Dr. Dementus. Such a lame villain. See, Fury Road didn’t give you a chance to breathe, and you accepted the world he dropped you into because it felt so authentic and real.
It’s almost the complete opposite here. For some reason, a lot of shots feel cheap, fake, color timed to shit, or green screened. Some stuff was just laughable. Were they on a tight budget? Like what the fuck happened here? Fury Road never felt cheap, far from it, but this feels like a significant downgrade in terms of every behind the scenes aspect. What gives?
And because of this, your mind wanders, and starts thinking about shit you normally wouldn’t concern yourself with if you were being entertained. Take this Dementus fellow. How did he manage to cobble together such a large gang that he alone commands with nary a peep of dissent? He’s clearly nuts, unhinged, doesn’t seem to have any leadership qualities, yet here he commands a veritable army.
Immortan Joe feels like a worthy villain for a gonzo action flick. Dementus is laughable, from his name to his appearance to just about everything else. Like, are we supposed to feel bad for him cause he lost his kids and carries their toy bear around? Who does this appeal to? The usual cattle, like on Film Twitter? The ones who jizzed their pants when this shit was released? Cause it ain’t working on this guy.
He kills Furiosa’s mother, setting up the main plot, which is cliché and terrible and obvious and pointless! No one fucking cares about Furiosa! These motherfuckers are acting like she’s Indiana Jones or Superman or some shit, where audiences are dying to find out their backstory. Give me a break. No one gives a shit how she got her mechanical arm. No one gives a shit where she got the idea to paint her forehead black. No one gives a shit when she shaved her head. Or that she had a mentor. It’s all so stupid!
When we see the opening of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and River Phoenix playing a young Indy gets the scar on his chin, the hat, the fear of snakes, it’s thrilling and satisfying and entertaining as shit, mainly cause by this point audiences loved Indy and wanted to find out as much as possible. They treat Furiosa painting her head black like Superman getting the red cape. Only problem is NO ONE CARES ABOUT FURIOSA! She is not Darth Vader. She is not Batman. She was a side character, AT BEST, in a great movie.
Her plotline was arguably the WORST aspect of Fury Road. A straight chase thriller a la Apocalypto would have worked better. But the good stuff in Fury Road is SO GOOD that it carries the relatively boring Theron stuff over the finish line. That the filmmakers decided to double down and make a whole movie about Furiosa is so damning and embarrassing that you have to wonder what was really going on here.
And then, the plot, as threadbare as it is, has us rooting for Immortan Joe and the War Boys? Huh? And Dementus is able to take over the entire gas supply with some ridiculous trojan horse scheme? What? And Furiosa escapes her captivity as a future sex slave and no one bothers to search for her save Rictus for like 5 minutes? Seriously? And Dementus never heard of the Citadel? HOW?! How the fuck have they not heard about this place? They all seem within a day’s ride of each other, yet are totally ignorant that there’s a veritable castle with all kinds of goodies just a stone’s throw away? Give me a fucking break. The list of stupid shit in this flick is positively endless.
Same with the action sequences. Endless, pointless, boring. They just bludgeon you with uninspired shit. I don’t care how long it took you to film some car chase if it lacks any and all drama that would make anyone give even the tiniest bit of shit! Oh look, Furiosa is a stowaway, but then she saves the day! WOW!!! And she’s able to hold on to that truck with those skinny little arms as this thing is being batted left and right. Bless her little girlboss heart! Not even Max Cady could hang on to that rig, but Furiosa? No problemo!
It was a SLOG to get through this shit, took me multiple viewings. And despite being 2 and a half hours long, whole sequences are glossed over.
Like how Furiosa went from sex slave to trusted War Rig worker? HUH?
Like the entire end fucking battle being taken care of in a 30 second dissolve montage? WHAT?!
And then you got shit like the final “battle” between Furiosa and Dementus, where they talk it out? COME THE FUCK ON!
And for some reason, right at the end, they sneak in a shot of Charlize Theron absconding with Joe’s wives to the tanker in a direct set up of Fury Road. Laughable! My god.
A set up WE DID NOT NEED AND DID NOT WANT!
There’s nothing I can recommend about this flick. Nothing. It fails on all levels. Easily the most boring “action” film I have seen in decades.
HARD. PASS.
The One Sheet
This flick had a shit ton of posters, and it’s just not worth it for a movie this bad. So we’ll just take a look at a few and call it a day on this fucking garbage.
This first preview poster is interesting. I like the design and color work, but it promises a film that does not exist. Still, graphically speaking, this is a successful one sheet.
This next one, featuring Taylor-Joy looming over an image of… herself, again, and Dementus and Joe, etc. This poster is okay, definitely better than the film it purports to deliver. But still kinda photoshoppy.
This last one, with Dementus in a red cape and Furiosa under him is again, whatever. If you go into this flick just looking for cool design work and shit like that, fine, you’ll probably walk away happy. But anyone hoping for a great movie that stays with you will be sorely disappointed.
That does it for the 1ST 5 Minutes of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. I don’t like doing these negative articles. Never fun to trash art. But we’re not here to hold hands, we’re here to test the theory. Can you decide a film’s quality in the 1ST 5 Minutes or not? I say you can, and it’s being proven time and time again.
Just look at the 1ST 5 Minutes here, it’s fucking terrible, and boring, which ends up being the case for the entire film. If you took this flick off after 5 minutes, you’d have missed nothing and quite possibly would have spent your time doing something way more productive and enriching than being repeatedly gouged in the eye by George Miller and company for 150 minutes.
See you in two blood bags, hopefully with a look at a much better film than this!