Shadows on the Wall | Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

dir George Miller
scr George Miller, Nick Lathouris
prd George Miller, Doug Mitchell
with Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Alyla Browne, Lachy Hulme, Angus Sampson, Nathan Jones, Josh Helman, Charlee Fraser, John Howard, George Shevtsov, Elsa Pataky
release US/UK 24.May.24
24/Australia Warners 2h28

CANNES FILM FEST

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Epic in size and scale, this prequel is packed with larger-than-life characters in a roaring story. It also feels stretched out thinly. While the elaborate action set-pieces are enormous, they roll along entertainingly without catching us by surprise, and the plot itself feels meandering and a bit undercooked. That said, few filmmakers can make such thrillingly thunderous movies as George Miller, and his cast adds plenty of fascinating texture.

After society collapses, young Furiosa (Browne) is living with her mother (Fraser) in a hidden verdant enclave in the Australian Outback when she's kidnapped by biker goons who take her to their preening leader Dementus (Hemsworth). He's challenging the fearsome Immortan Joe (Hulme), who takes Furiosa in. And she grows up to become one of his operatives. But Dementus and Joe are on a collision course over control of the region's limited resources, and the now grown Furiosa (Taylor-Joy) takes this opportunity to get even with both of them for derailing her life.

Fascinating details fill the screen, as do outrageous supporting figures who are so numerous that they only register based on their salient characteristic. The most mesmerising is History Man (Shevtsov), who is tattooed and clothed in human knowledge. Meanwhile, the action sequences are astonishingly designed to look like they are spiralling out of control at all times, so as these makeshift vehicles rocket through the desert, there are continual heart-racing moments performed to perfection by the stunt team and practical effects crew.

With her sparse dialog and intense physicality, Taylor-Joy holds the film together skilfully, offering an underlying determination that is gripping to watch even if script is rather obvious about her motivation. She's such a loner that her brief connections with her captors and cohorts barely register. The strongest is with Burke, terrific in an underwritten role as a driver who teams up with Furiosa for the film's staggering central action sequence, in which armies of warriors battle over a gleaming tanker truck zooming across the sand.

These jaw-dropping set-pieces hold the plot's episodic structure together, while Hemsworth adds a whiff of pathos to his hilariously camp villain, whose connection with the young Furiosa is linked to his own dead daughter. But this feels like another distraction from the central driving madness of this franchise, which made The Road Warrior and Fury Road such classics. This film actually manages to do less with even more. And yet it's still one of the most impressive, exciting movies of the year.

themes, language, violence 17.Mar.24

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