The only bad thing about Furiosa: from the Mad Max saga is that it ends. It makes you want to stay and live in that dystopian and desert world despite how dangerous and hostile it is.
Its almost two and a half hours pass like an overwhelming five-minute short, and the credit for such a feat goes to all those who made it possible, but mainly to its director George Miller, who returns with the engines more oiled than ever.
Nothing is left over Furious, spin-off of the title character and prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). Everything is put without stridency, without underlining, without dwelling on unnecessary details so that the plot moves at a steady pace, as if it were a post-apocalyptic steamroller, with a naturalness that is always functional to the story, which captivates thanks to its vibrant action, its deformed characters, its sand showers and its hypnotic photography (by Simon Duggan).
Miller uses the imposing Australian desert to articulate the staging. Every decision he makes, from Tom Holkenborg’s music to the detailed shots of the tuned vehicles, takes on a charm and uniqueness that renews large-scale cinema, refining and redefining it in an original way.
What is Furiosa’s story like?
The film is in charge of telling how Furiosa (a character played by Charlize Theron in the previous installment) was born. In the first minutes we see how a horde of bikers kidnap the girl (Alyla Browne) and take her from her home, the Green Place of Many Mothers, to take her to their leader Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), the new villain, who forces to the healthy and “mute” Furiosa to tell where she comes from.
He’s your typical bizarre anarcho-rightist with power, an idiot who talks more than he thinks (Hemsworth’s composition is very effective).
Of course, Furiosa has a mother who goes after her when she is captured, but Dementus catches her and kills her, which becomes the girl’s motive for revenge, who patiently waits for the years to pass until she grows up and begins to be played by Anya Taylor-Joy, who, despite her petite build, manages to convey the character’s fury almost without articulating words.
In the middle appears Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), the historical tyrant of the saga, who confronts Dementus when he and his people arrive at the fortress where he lives, Citadel, to haughtily challenge him.
It is here that the film takes another flight, as Miller shifts the focus on Furiosa to focus on the rivalry between the two tyrants and the war that breaks out.
The film, divided into chapters, not only tells the birth of the main character, but also takes the time to expand and get to know the world in which those people live. freaks inhumans, showing the three parts that constitute it, with immersive action scenes in each of them.
Miller teaches how the sequences are shot with those sophisticated cars driven by mutant characters (his trademark), and proposes a dystopia in which he allows a glimpse of minimal hope.
The director demonstrates, once again, that this saga is his masterpiece, the one that will leave him alive in cinephile memory forever and ever. Amen.
To see “Furiosa: from the Mad Max saga”
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Australia/United States, 2024. Action. Rating: excellent. Director: George Miller. Screenplay: George Miller and Nick Lathouris. Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Alyla Browne, Lachy Hulme, John Howard, Angus Sampson, Charlee Fraser, Elsa Pataky, Nathan Jones, Josh Helman, David Field, Sean Millis and Rahel Romahn. Photography: Simon Duggan. Music: Tom Holkenborg. Duration: 148 minutes. Suitable for people over 16 years of age. In cinemas.
