An iconic heroine mostly gets her due in 'Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga'
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is a brutally abundant story, maybe not for our times, but possibly our future. Let's hope that's not the case.
Because apparently there can be only one. Woman, that is. We already knew her mother was destined to die on the third day, but I guess there’s only room for one badass woman in this tale of mankind going rogue.
You would think there would be more, and that such a story of a woman coming into her own wouldn’t start with a kind of warning about what happens when curiosity takes her too far. But when the young heroine-to-be plucks an apple right after being called out for wandering out of bounds, the outfits aren’t going to be the only thing in “Furiosa” that’s Biblical.
The “Mad Max” series has always been more than its villains, however iconic, and this time its thesis is spoken aloud within its opening minutes: “As the world falls around us, how should we brave its cruelties?” For Furiosa, her greatest advantage may not be her legendary battle prowess, however spectacular, but rather, her knowledge. It enabled her to keep not only her hope, but compassion intact. It helps when you not only know there’s a better way, you’ve also lived it.
We get a very brief look at her childhood oasis of beauty and equality before the young Furiosa is taken from it (not to mention Alyla Browne, a child actor so skilled she leaves many an adult thespian in the dust, and not the dystopian kind) and is forced to watch her mother’s brutal murder at the hands of the warlord Dr. Dementus, played by Chris Hemsworth, who actually teeters on being unrecognizable. Then like her, we’re whisked away on a whirlwind tour of this apocalyptic world and what humanity has made of it.
It’s hardly a surprise that this vision of post-apocalyptic Australia has far more in common with “Evil Dead” than “The Hunger Games,” and things sure as hell aren’t groovy. But much like Sam Raimi’s franchise, which has also remained consistently, brutally effective throughout the decades, there’s another iconic hero who has a signature look to grow into. Who needs Deadites when you have people at their worst?
Warner Bros. Pictures
George Miller hardly needs to prove he still has his very particular set of skills and clout to give the people what they want, even in the era of CGI and now AI, but will he manage to squeeze in a little cerebral detour in the midst of the nearly nonstop action? How exactly does Furiosa hold onto her humanity, which is dangerously close to being taken for granted? Anya Taylor-Joy may gift herself a tattoo of the map home, but it seems she barely has the wives who are the heart and soul of “Fury Road.”
After she falls into the hands of Big Bad Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), there’s no mention of how Furiosa’s intellectual consciousness is kept alive even after years in survival mode, how she manages to bond with other women in a world where they are given every reason to be divided in their oppression, and how they might potentially be the keepers of kindness and history itself.
In another movie, this would be a gaping plot hole. In “Furiosa,” it’s more of a nitpick which could potentially slow down the nearly continuous action as humanity fights for slim pickings in the dusty void filled with only most necessary dialogue and amped up tanks and monster trucks. Actions may speak louder than words, but development is another story.
Grade: A-
