Furiosa: The Fury of the ALREADY DEAD: A Mad Max Saga - A Review
Seriously... Someone said "We're already dead!" in this movie.
When I first saw the trailer for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, I was skeptical. I felt that negative feeling until it said "From Mastermind George Miller." I breathed a sigh of relief. George Miller hasn't let me down in his 79 years on the planet. How could he blow it now?! Miller directed film classics like Babe: Pig in the City, Happy Feet, the beautiful 2000 Years of Longing, and every single Mad Max film since he started the Franchise in 1979.
The Mad Max Universe is George Miller's greatest and most consistent creation. It feels like he wanted to squeeze out one more film for those us that appreciated Mad Max: Fury Road by telling the backstory of one of the most dangerous characters in the series, Furiosa (Charlize Theron). If "mastermind George Miller" was involved, I would crucify my butt to the cinema seat to see what he comes up with.
Fury Road: The Beginning
If you know anything about the character Furiosa from 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road, you know she's intense, violent, and difficult to trust. In Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, we get to find out why. Like all movies in this series, this one is violent. It’s not violent in the way that something like The Fall Guy or The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. this violence feels more pointed. It feels more apocalyptic. It feels like the opposite of Civil War.
The movie begins with Furiosa as a child. She is a Vulvalini with a “magnificent mother.” While grabbing peaches with her friend Valkyrie, Furiosa does something dumb after she sees some Mad Max-looking biker dudes fiddling with something. She tries to cut the gas lines on their bikes, but she gets caught because of course she does.
Furiosa starts blowing her recorder-thing to let everyone in The Green Place know what's up. Like an Angel of Death, Furiosa's mother is quickly on their trail to get her daughter back. Furiosa keeps trying to escape on her own, but she can't do it. After a flurry of sniper-y violence, Furiosa's mother is able to get to her daughter, but only AFTER someone divulges the location of The Green Place to Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). If you know anything about the last 45 years of Mad Max movies, you know anybody with a name like that is good at killing.
After choosing a bad guy's costume to change into, we see Furiosa's mother's magnificence as she slingshots some men to death. Unfortunately, she leaves the woman bathing her daughter alive. They're both mothers and she promises she won't say anything. As soon as they leave she runs over and tattles to Dementus.
The epic escape is cut short. Dementus and his boys are coming. Furiosa's mother gives her daughter their motorcycle. She tells her to go home while she holds Dementus and his men at a gorge all by herself. Since nobody cares about life in the Wasteland, she snuffs a lot of them out, but it’s too late. They catch Furiosa's mother, tie up all four of her limbs, and rather than follow her mother's very clear instructions to get home, Furiosa does her 2nd dumb thing and runs over to her instead.
Do you think Furiosa will make it back home?
Furiosa Never Goes Home: The Movie
Furiosa spends a lot of her young life in a cage. Dementus keeps her there while looking for The Green Place Furiosa is from. She rarely speaks. Her life is one catastrophe following another. Furiosa watches everything. The death of her mother… she watches. Other people die… she watches. Her cold eyes stay open for everything that happens to her.
The History Man tells her that she could be like him. She needs to learn to write and read and had best be of use to Dementus and others like him. Furiosa is like, "hell naw" and steals a tattoo gun to keep a record of where she's going and where she must go when she's free. She keeps it on her wrist. This is important to remember because in Mad Max: Fury Road Furiosa only has one arm. Mad Max as a franchise has always done a good job showing the pain of the Wasteland through the physical bodies of its inhabitants. Even now, we’ve got a man with one eye and nothing in the other hole. We’ve got “History Man” who is and elderly man with tattoos all over his body. He gives Dementus knowledge of the past and tells a lot of stories. Even Max himself walks with a limp due to an injury in previous movies.
Dementus is struggling to find The Green Place, but as Furiosa refuses to speak, they find the Citadel first. Demetrius goes on talking about a life of demon-tinged peace. He says that everyone should join him and bring the leaders down to him. That's when we get to meet our favorite bastard, Immorten Joe. He's back baby! All with his fake muscles, scary mouthpiece, and unnaturally white skin. His gang of suicidal War Boys are happy to go to Valhalla by kicking Dementus and his boys out of town.
As always, Dementus doesn't care who's gone. It’s the Wasteland after all. As the explodie boys will keep him out of the Citadel, he comes up with a new plan. He takes over "Gas Town" and gets to meet Immorten Joe face to face. We've seen a whole lot of murder to get to this point. Once these men get to talking, all Joe wants to talk about is that "whole girl" Dementus has in a cage. They make their deal of food for guzzaline as long as he leaves Furiosa with him. Immorten Joe believes she will make a stunning wife for him one day. One day soon. Dementus is the new Warlord of Gas Town and will provide fuel for Immorten Joe's slave-filled operation.
That’s a small chunk of the story.
Should You Watch Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga?
You should! Especially if you enjoyed Mad Max: Fury Road. Despite it carrying the Mad Max name, it became a Furiosa film once Charlize Theron began driving the massive, two-engine War Rig. Fury Road was a big movie that came down to a chase to The Green Place, which has been destroyed, then another chase back to the Citadel that Immorten Joe tried to stop, but couldn't. Poor guy just wanted all of his wives back despite being dreadfully repugnant. If you enjoyed Mad Max: Fury Road as I did, you will be pretty satisfied knowing the details of Furiosa's story.
It's violent, sad, and apocalyptic, but that’s what makes it feel like it matters. Dementus takes much more from Furiosa than her mother, but you should see it to find it all out!
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Spoilers below!