Furiosa: De la saga Mad Max

Max Mad fan here, I would rate previous movies: Mad Max around a 6, Road Warrior 8 Thunder Dome 7 Fury Road 9 and speaking of Fury Road....

This is unfortunately a pale comparison to Fury Road. The look is off everything from camerawork to editing to the costumes to vehicles to action scenes. Loads of bad CGI replaces the high octane realistic crazy stunts and motor mayhem from fury road. It all looks shot in a studio with fake everything. Big drop in quality and a sense of realism.

It's sad to see that Miller has settled for the studio instead of real vehicles in real environments with neck breaking stunts. Both clothes and vehicles just looks very designed now as well instead of a somewhat believable mishmash of what can be found in the wastelands. It's also a-lot cleaner in every way, vehicles look shiny and newly made. It just feels more censored and less naked and rough.

The story surprises nobody and is pretty much exactly what you expect. Void from a lot of the epic action scenes you might have to expect after fury road. You get some decent action but Fury Road is the gold standard here and this is not even close. Look and feels more like a cookie cutter action movie set in the Mad Max universe. Had I have to guess without knowing it I would never have guessed that Miller directed this. The world building is cool though and you get more of the cool world of Mad Max so that is a big plus.

Actors do a decent to a good job all around.

Immortan Joe is not impressed.

MEDIOCRE!!!

George Miller... "Why yes, yes I do. Well sort of anyway..."

I really really wanted to love Furiosa but in the end I didn't, I liked it but didn't love it. Big big shoes to fill, I completely love Fury Road - a perfect action film in every way, so I was prepared to have this film fall in its shadow. Which it did. Furiosa is fun but its sadly no FR.

The good news: You want action? There is action, loads of it. Like any good Mad Max story it holds true to its promise to entertain the masses with spectacle. Glorious. We get the hot rods, big wheels, diggers, bikes of all shapes and sizes, as well as flying contraptions, weaponry galore and no holding back on the violence. Explosions, bodies flying, witness me etc. Plenty. It can be brutal and nasty but true to form and true to Mad Max. What more do you want?

Casting is good, perhaps a few too many characters leaving each of them to have not quite enough to do especially with Immortan Joe's followers. Anja Taylor Joy is good as Furiosa and Hemsworth seems to really be enjoying himself. Dementus is a great villain, a sort of love child of Immortan Joe and The Humungus; the presence, the wee speeches, his villainy is fun. And he gets to be very Aussie no need to hide that accent. I also liked a younger and much cleverer Immortan Joe; in this film he's not the core bad guy and without the need to get his 5 wives back as a motivator making him crazy we get to see him as the warlord he is. Smart and patient and in control.

And there's world building! Which was very cool. We got to see more of the Wasteland and get hints of how it ticks and what made it so.

The bad news: Visually Furiosa is a bit of a mixed bag; sometimes we get stuff worthy of its predecessor and other times we get stuff that is... less so. The colour is much more pale than the richness of FR and the cinematography is no where near the standards. Occasionally the CGI lets the film down just a bit. In Fury Road you got the impression that it was almost all practical effects even if it wasn't. In Furiosa there are sequences where I went... 'eww, yikes' as the standards of the film dropped. Only a few moments but be prepared.

The music is often absent or very lacking. The sweeping epics of Fury Road are almost gone instead we get much more background stuff or even sadly largely silent action sequences. This leads to a lack of tension, nothing edge of your seat here.

The writing and edit isn't great. The characters lack spark and bits feel missing. Miller is trying to tell a story but seems unsure of how to write characters in which one can invest. Furiosa has more ambition in its story telling and I think its execution is lacking. The core story solid but it seems a bit empty on the screen. The film jumps at times skipping over character development worthy of exploration.

In the edit i really really missed the fast cuts of Fury where Miller really built his scenes through tight production and cuts and edits where everything builds beautifully and leads to a great conclusions. Miller did this scene after scene in FR whereas in Furiosa its really lacking. Means theres not as much tension, not as many 'that was close' nor 'that was amazing' moments.

Overall I did like it. Furiosa is a good Mad Max film but its no Fury Road. I'd be surprised if the film is recognized at Oscar time, where Fury Road won 6 Furiosa might get a nomination or two in the technical but no nominations for Directing or Best Picture.

By my deeds I honour him...

By my wallet I honour George Miller, Witness Furiosa. Its worth your time and money but not more than that.

It would be folly to try and outdo Fury Road and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is smart enough to not even attempt that. It's a completely different film in its structure which allows it to be a prequel that tells a complete story on its own whilst still enhancing Fury Road with its world building. The fact that George Miller is still telling stories in the wasteland at this scale is a real gift.

Alyla Brown gets a lot more screen time than child versions of pre-established characters usually get and with next to no dialogue she is superb at communicating everything without words. Carrying that on for the second half, Anya Taylor-Joy does a phenomenal job and was right to fight to keep the scream in. If you need someone to act exclusively with their eyes, she is as perfect as they come.

Chris Hemsworth is clearly relishing the opportunity to play a properly mad villain with Dementus and has so many chill inducing moments. This is easily the best he's been so far, completely unhinged with just enough depth to explain everything he does. He's a complicated figure who always seeks power but is never able to truly hold onto it.

George Miller truly is a genius when it comes to exploring this franchise. Getting to see a fully realised Gas Town and Bullet Farm allows this world to cohere like never before and the action crafted here is so epic with gorgeous imagery that refuses to slow down. Just like John Seale achieved last time, Simon Duggans's cinematography can keep the action clean no matter what's thrown at it.

It makes sense that the only way Tom Holkenborg could come close to his best work on Fury Road was to return to the wasteland and his score here continues to compliment the kineticism of the action so well. The only downside is the CGI which looks pretty bad at various points and stands out further because of how well Fury Road implemented it.

Let me start off by saying this, if you enjoyed the last movie, you'll probably get a good time out of this one. That being said, it's night and day when you compare the two. I'm a huge fan of the last one, the spectacle and action make it one of the best films of all time imo, and it's clear they tried to recreate that with this movie, but for me it falls flat. Most, if not all, action sequences are all CGI, it's good CGI, but you can absolutely tell it's CG. There are lots of times in the movie where it straight up just looks out of a video game. I get where this comes from, the shots they go for are definitely a bit more ambitious, but it's lacking the chunky and gritty realism of the last film. The action can seem floaty and overly ragdolly at times because of this. Regardless, this isn't my biggest complaint with the movie, my biggest is the story. There are times when things just happen for no good reason at all, in an effort to avoid spoilers, I won't list them, but they are painstakingly obvious. For example, an integral character gets killed and it seems to be of zero consequence to one of the characters, even though the movie spends some time trying this half baked romance. I also just couldn't get into Anya Taylor-Joy as furiousa, maybe it's just a me thing, but she just doesn't really fit the gritty role she's meant to play. Chis Hemsworth is a standout performance though, although I do think, again, the writing for his character is a bit garbage. Regardless, this is a fun movie, lots of cool action shots, and pretty good if you have no preconceptions and expectations stemming from the last movie.

I had hopes for more action and crazy stunts. Less CGI and a more solid story.

Instead I got bored, there was 10x more dialog.

The story on how Furiosa escaped was full of holes (a cult desperate for young healthy woman completely looking past her for years on end??).

Dementus was a glorified comedian and someone you could not take seriously. They couldn't even use the same voice effects for Immortan Joe as the 1st movie so he sounded like a small boy.

The 30 day war was a 10 second nothing.

It's a good movie but no way contends with the action scenes and stunts from fury road. It missed that action movie, edge of your seat vibe.

I witnessed it and It did not ride through the gates of Valhalla shiny and chrome.