Furiosa - A Mad Max Saga [dir. George Miller]

It's general acclaim notwithstanding, many Mad Max fanboys were not pleased that the franchise's last installment Fury Road was less a Max showcase and more a film about its female protagonist Furiosa (Charlize Theron). Now 9 years later, this prequel goes even further in that direction, focusing entirely on the origins of the renegade woman warrior. Max is seen only in a single shot, replicating the one at the beginning of Fury Road.

We first meet Furiosa as a little girl from an unmapped oasis, kidnapped by raiders when she goes foraging. Her brave mother embarks on a rescue mission, but is killed by the horde of bad guy Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Dementus imprisons little Furiosa to know the location of her oasis, but is soon forced to give her up to Citadel ruler Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme filling in for the late Hugh Keays-Byrne). To escape the fate of joining Joe's harem, Furiosa shaves her head to disguise herself as a boy, and works for the Citadel garage. Later as an adult (Anya Taylor-Joy from The Menu), she shows her mettle in an astounding vehicle combat sequence that demonstrates helmer George Miller's continued mastery of the craft. This earns her the respect of Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), the Citadel's 'War Rig' driver, who then furthers her education in survival.

An aging Dementus reappears on the scene, engineering treachery to take over the citadel. Amidst the battle between the different factions in the wasteland, Furiosa must obtain her revenge and her release. As you may expect, there is a good amount of combat here, both on vehicles and off. Anya Taylor-Joy gives a decent account of herself as the taciturn constantly wary warrior, and she is certainly up for the physical demands of the role, which I had not expected from seeing her as the cigarette-huffing stick-figured girl in The Menu. But it is Chris Hemsworth who seems to be having the most fun. His Dementus is by turns a blusterer, a comic, a megalomaniac, a traitor...yet in the end he almost wins our sympathy with a superbly delivered monologue about how vengeance never takes away the pain. It finally leads to the point where Furiosa's mission in Fury Road begins.

At nearly 2.5 hours, the prequel is significantly longer than Fury Road. A lot of the time is spent on identifying the different factions and their politics. It's not Shakespearean drama, and some of it more in the vein of video game cut-scenes. Thankfully these proceedings (marked by portentous chapter stops) are sufficiently punctuated with enough blistering action to make the whole dish palatable. Once again, Miller shows how to conduct scenes of battle which are palpable and have a clear flow that makes them easy to follow.

While I would have liked for a more crisp adventure, I still had a good time at the cinema, which is really where you should be catching this spectacle.