Visionary director George Miller’s follow up to his action masterpiece Mad Max: Fury Road is another epic blockbuster featuring sequences unlike anything you’ve seen before, this time centred around a powerhouse lead performance from Anya Taylor-Joy.

Premise: Decades before the events of Mad Max: Fury Road, a young Furiosa is taken from her home in the Green Place by minions of the warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), and forced to survive in the unforgiving post-apocalyptic world of the Wasteland. Years later, Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) patiently waits for the opportunity to enact her escape plans.

Review:

When Mad Max: Fury Road hit cinemas in 2015 (thirty years after the previous Mad Max film) it was rightly hailed as a masterpiece of action cinema, and topped many Film of the Year/Decade lists (especially among other directors). So I wondered how George Miller (who is now 79 years old) could possibly follow Fury Road after it set the bar so high, and it seems that the answer is by not attempting to out-Fury-Road Fury Road.

While Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is unquestionable a spiritual sibling to Fury Road, it’s also not simply a rehash of the previous film. Whereas Fury Road took place over the course of a couple of days, Furiosa is set across 15 years; while Fury Road was a non-stop, adrenaline-fuelled chase movie, Furiosa is an episodic, character-driven odyssey; and where Fury Road was essentially a two-hander between Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, Furiosa is solely focused on Furiosa herself, initially played by Alyla Browne before growing up into Anya Taylor-Joy.

“…each of the movie’s chapters focus on a different pivotal event in Furiosa’s life…”

As such, Furiosa feels like a very different beast from Fury Road, despite sharing a lot of the same DNA. For example, we get to see the Green Place in its prime, and we revisit the Citadel from Fury Road, all of which means that Furiosa very much feels like a companion piece to Fury Road – but instead of this being a fast-paced chase movie that takes place almost exclusively on the open road of the Wasteland, each of this movie’s five chapters focus on a different pivotal event in Furiosa’s life, providing us with snapshots of her life over a fifteen year period.

Perhaps surprisingly, despite being the star of the film, Anya Taylor-Joy doesn’t appear in the first couple of chapters, which focus on the younger Furiosa, played by relative newcomer Alyla Browne. She does a great job of establishing the character’s backstory, and it’s a real credit to her performance that you don’t spend the first section of the film simply wondering when Anya Taylor-Joy is going to turn up.

“…Anya Taylor-Joy delivers an unforgettable performance…”

That said, when she does finally take over the role of Furiosa, Anya Taylor-Joy delivers an unforgettable performance that carries the audience along with her on her character’s arduous journey. When the idea of a Fury Road prequel centred on Furiosa was first mooted, I was disappointed that Charlize Theron wasn’t returning – but having now seen Furiosa, it made perfect sense to recast the role given that the events take place a couple of decades before Fury Road (and Charlize Theron made Fury Road nine years ago, so would effectively be playing a character 20+ years younger than she is). I recall George Miller mentioning that he had considered using de-aging technology on Charlize Theron, but I’m glad he didn’t – it’s good in small doses (like in the flashbacks in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), but it can be very distracting when used too much (like in The Irishman).

Like Tom Hardy in Fury Road, Anya Taylor-Joy delivers a character-driven performance with very little dialogue (I’ve heard reports that people have counted that she only has 30 lines of dialogue in the whole film), and instead she relies on body language and non-verbal communication to convey her character. In this regard, she does an incredible job, as you’re never left in any doubt as to what’s going through Furiosa’s mind at any given point.

“…Chris Hemsworth’s layered performance conveys a sense of hopelessness at his core…”

Although this is unquestionably Furiosa’s film, there are a couple of supporting characters that do deserve special mention. The first is Chris Hemsworth’s performance as the up-and-coming warlord Dementus. Dementus could have so easily just been a carbon-copy of Immortan Joe (the main antagonist from Fury Road, who also makes an appearance in this movie), or at one point when Chris Hemsworth’s casting was announced, it was speculated that Dementus may just be another of Immortan Joe’s lieutenants, alongside The People Eater and The Bullet Farmer, and Joe’s sons Rictus Erectus and Scabrous Scrotus. Instead, Dementus is something far more interesting, and Chris Hemsworth does an impressive job of conveying a real sense of tragedy behind that character’s monstrous actions. Chris Hemsworth’s portrayal doesn’t seek to excuse or lessen Dementus’ villainous acts, but his layered performance does convey a sense of hopelessness at the core of the character, which brings to mind the saying that ‘hurt people hurt people’.

The other supporting actor who deserves a mention is Tom Burke, in his biggest film role to date as Praetorian Jack, the original driver of Immortan Joe’s War Rig. Like Anya Taylor-Joy, Tom Burke’s role doesn’t involve a lot of dialogue, but like Furiosa, there’s a lot going on under the surface with Praetorian Jack. Hopefully, his performances this and his TV show Strike will lead to more recognition and more opportunities for Tom Burke.

“…the action sequences need to be seen to be believed…”

It probably goes without saying, but when it comes to the action sequences in Furiosa, the 79-year-old George Miller doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. Without getting into spoilers, some of the action sequences need to be seen to be believed (especially a sequence involving the War Rig at around the halfway point in the film), but each of the chapters offers a different flavour of action, so it never feels repetitive.

If there’s one weakness in Furiosa, it’s that as a prequel, it can’t escape the fact that the audience already know what happens to certain characters, or in relation to certain events. This is, of course, an inherent problem with all prequels, and while it does undermine some of the tension or mystery in a couple of scenes, overall these issues are more than made up for by the focus on character moments and the incredible stunt work and action choreography. I should also mention, without giving any spoilers away, that the final act of the film did not go the way I was expecting, and was all the better (and more poignant) because of it.

“…the action is uncompromising & inventive…”

While it dials back on the propulsive energy of Fury Road, Furiosa doubles down on the character-driven elements thanks to Anya Taylor-Joy’s and Chris Hemsworth’s memorable and raw performances – becoming an exploration of the power of hope versus hate, as much as it is about the control of gasoline and bullets. But when the action does come, it’s still as uncompromising and inventive as we’ve come to expect from George Miller and the Mad Max team.