I’m not surprised that Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga failed at the box office but calling a movie with a worldwide gross of over $170 million a failure seemed outrageous back in 2015 when Mad Max: Fury Road hit theaters. And that’s part of the problem with Furiosa. People went in probably expecting Fury Road 2.
Instead what they got was a very long back story about the titular character played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road and by Alyla Browne as a young teenager and Anya Taylor-Joy as a young woman. The movie has been in development hell for years that Theron was too old to play the character and Hugh Keays-Byrne who plays Immortan Joe had passed away in 2020. (I might also add that maybe the merger of Warner Bros and Discovery under the helm of David Zaslav didn’t help. After all the criticism of Fury Road from dudebros about the tone, it was a hard sell. And as Lucasfilm reports The Acolyte is canceled, there’s still problems when new ideas are done in grounded franchises.)
But the main character of George Miller’s apocalyptic saga has never been the human actors but the dystopia wasteland of Australia. The filmmaker has loved turning the Down Under into some wretched horror of humanity. I remember my mom asked upon seeing the PG-13 family-friendly Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome if it was set on Earth or another planet. I was only a kid at the time and my only previous knowledge of Australia came from BMX Bandits. It does seem like a literal interpretation of Hell on Earth.
There’s even been a fan theory that Tom Hardy isn’t really Max Rockastanksy originated by Mel Gibson, but actually the Feral Child he befriended in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. This is mainly because Furiosa and the man who may or may not be Max never really introduce themselves until the end of the Fury Road where he finally says his name is Max but almost like he was lying. And Hardy plays the character like he is more deranged and anxious. For the first time in the franchise, Max actually seemed to be going mad.
Just as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein made Narnia and Middle-Earth both vast worlds, sit took more than just a basic story to tell all that needed to be told. Miller has also overstepped traditional tropes and styles to give his movies a different feel. Even for 1979, the ending of the original Mad Max is so depressing and unsettling, it had to be made as far away from Hollywood as possible. His wife and child would have survived if Miller had made it with more conventional studio input. Even though the revenge movies were popular with Death Wish and Rolling Thunder, the movie went from being an action thriller to an analysis on human nature and resilience as Max loses everyone around him that still keeps him civilized at which point he has nothing to keep him going but vengeance.
In the second movie, the irony that Max’s gas truck was a decoy he didn’t even know about seems to work perfectly. The Great Northern Tribe never really trusted Max and were willing to throw him to the wolves. And it’s implied the Warrior Woman played by Virginia Hey will be Max’s love interest, but that never materializes and she is killed in the movie’s climax. By calling the third movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, it was anticipated the climax would have Max return to Thunderdome. But the battle between Max and Blaster comes about half-way through. And Thunderdome is never mentioned again.
Maybe it’s because Miller was originally a medical doctor that his desire for storytelling changes conventions. A story like Furiosa is completely different from the previous movies. But each previous one had its own style and format. The movie begins decades after the apocalypse which only furthers the concept that the Feral Child is grown and pretending to be Max in Fury Road, Furiosa lives in the Green Place of Many Mothers. But she is captured by the Biker Horde as a prize to their leader, Dementus (Chris Hemsworth in a pleasant villain role).
Furiosa’s mother, Mary (Charlee Fraser) tracks them down and is successful in killing most of the bikers but Mary sacrifices herself so Furiosa can escape. She is later crucified. However, Furiosa refused to leave and was captured herself where she gradually becomes closer to Dementus over time.
The Biker Horde tries to take over the Citadel run by Immortan Joe (now played by Lachy Hulme) but they are overpowered and then capture Gastown, one of the last settlements of the Wasteland. Dementus and Immortan Joe eventually come to a negotiation where Gastown will supply the Citadel with enough fuel and the Citadel will supply Gastown with necessary foods. However, Joe demands he receive Furiosa also in the trade which Dementus agrees to.
However, Rictus Erectus (Nathan Jones), Joe’s brutish muscle-man son, attempts to sexually assault the young Furiosa who manages to escape and spend the next several years under the guise of a mute young man. Eventually, she makes her way on the Citadel’s first War Rig led by Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke). However, as they are bombarded with raiders while carrying supplies to Gastown, Jack discovers Furiosa is a young woman. After a disagreement, they eventually work together.
But they soon find there are problems in Gastown and Dementus now more than ever is out for blood wanting to control the Wastelands. Similar to the previous movies, it’s typical of the fight for survival plotline. And while I’m kinda bored with this format which was also in the overrated Civil War, I still think Miller and his co-writer Nico Lathouris approach it with some freshness. They’ve created an entire world where human civilization is just barely hanging on. (I’ve often wondered what is happening in on other continents but maybe things are so bad, not even Australians know as satellite communications have failed.)
Previous filmmakers have done this dystopia concept but they seem to repeat what others have done. Here, it looks like humanity is literally eating itself. The People Eater (John Howard) returns in a younger more mobile way. And there’s a scene after Furiosa loses her arm that might have people retching at what they see. It is a gruesome scene and we are shown just enough to be repulsed by it but there’s still some mystery that I’ve seen it debated on online forums.
It’s been reported that this script or at least the basic storyline was written before they wrote the script to Fury Road. We briefly see what we think is Max during a scene but this is supposed to be set 10-20 years before the events of Fury Road whereas Thunderdome is supposed to be set about 25 years after the events of The Road Warrior which was about five years after the first movie’s time frame. I think what Miller is also saying in a world where humanity is resorting to its primal stages and diseases and plagues are spreading, time is no longer important. Just getting through each day is the goal.
The biggest problem with Furiosa is its length. It’s the longest one so far of the franchise at nearly two-and-a-half hours with credits. Miller’s wife, Margaret Sixel, returns as the editor along with Eliot Knapman. She edited Fury Road all by herself and Miller chose her because she had never cut a movie together before and didn’t want it to look like a usual action movie. I admit it, is a stunning movie and Sixel won a much deserved Oscar. However, this movie needed to be a tighter two-hour movie like Fury Road.
I think some of the frustration may be that the first hour seems to drag at times with people wondering when the more prominent Taylor-Joy is going to come in. And despite the longer first hour, some moments that should be given more attention later on aren’t given it. Not to give much away but a prominent character’s death happens mostly in the background all nonchalant and Dementus’ fate itself seems different than normal. Sometimes you have to stick to the tropes in certain area. I understand what they’re trying to say here with how the brutality of the apocalyptic wasteland can take anyone at anytime without much warning.
But after so many dystopia apocalyptic movies dating back to the first Mad Max, you still feel like you’ve seen it before and better. With Hemsworth’s performance which is like a Bizarro Thor and the sped up frames at time, there’s a surreal quality to the movie. Taylor-Joy does a good job in the role and she isn’t copying Theron but we understand why she is the way she is in Fury Road. Part of what made the first one so memorable because society and civilization was trying its hardest to stick together. Notice how the Hall of Justice where the Main Force Police was located is dilapidated. Things are falling apart. I find this more interesting and wish a filmmaker would focus on this.
Then, again, Miller and other filmmakers like Ridley Scott in Blade Runner and George A. Romero in Dawn of the Dead did help write the book for a future apocalyptic world where the living possibly envied the dead. Miller has been trying to make another movie, Mad Max: The Wastelands, to focus on Max prior to the events in Fury Road. But following the box office performance, it’s unlikely to move forward. With Miller now 79, it’s highly unlikely he will be directing.
Yet, it’s possible. There was 30-year gap between Thunderdome and Fury Road and he wowed us even though no one was asking for another Mad Max movie. He could possibly do Wastelands as a nice swan song.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 