Mad Max 5 review: Miscast Chris Hemsworth misses the mark

With a lot of crazy stunts and a miscast Chris Hemsworth, Furiosa is better than most action films but it can’t match the dizzy heights of its predecessor, writes Leigh Paatsch.

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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is better than most action films on the big screen right now, but it doesn’t compare to director George Miller’s other movies in the popular franchise, writes Leigh Paatsch.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (MA15+)

Director: George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Alyla Browne.

★★★

Once again, we are about to be catapulted at high velocity into the Mad Maxiverse.

However, for the first time, we won’t be sitting in the passenger seat alongside the iconic antihero Max Rockatansky as he puts the foot down and makes tracks for hell.

Now the wheel has been taken by Furiosa, the one-armed bandit queen made famous by Charlize Theron in the acclaimed 2015 box-office smash, Mad Max: Fury Road.

The storytelling tape has been rewound all the way back to the origin story of Furiosa – now played by British star Anya Taylor-Joy – so we can learn of the many trials and tribulations that transformed her into such a lethal one-woman fighting force.

Anja Taylor-Joy stars in Furiosa: a Mad Max saga.

Unfortunately, this prequel is in no way the equal of Fury Road, a molten-metal masterpiece which remains one of the greatest action movies ever made.

Where Fury Road aspired to (and achieved) nothing less than pure, pulverising perfection, Furiosa settles for a seen-it-all-before second-best which has to rank as a faint disappointment.

Sure, veteran Mad Max mastermind George Miller and his creative team are still executing a sophisticated technical and design precision that elevates their work well above all others working in the action genre.

Anya Taylor-Joy in a scene from Furiosa: a Mad Max saga.

However, the anarchic urgency and powerful storytelling cohesion that supercharged Fury Road to instant classic status is barely evident in Furiosa.

The chief problem with the new movie is its clunky, cluttered screenplay, which divides Furiosa’s 15-year odyssey from frightened little girl to fearless motorised maverick into five distinct chapters.

It takes almost an hour to grind through a full listing of the wrongs that Furiosa will be setting out to right, of which the only notable one is the brutal death of her noble mother at the hands of the barbarian biker war lord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth).

Chris Hemsworth in a scene from Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

While newcomer Alyla Browne acquits herself admirably in this bloated opening section of the picture as the younger Furiosa, a miscast and near-unrecognisable Hemsworth misses the malevolent mark needed to establish a truly unhinged screen villain.

Instead, Hemsworth’s Dementus is a pantomime bad dude to be jeered rather than feared: often coming across as if someone whipped up a WWE wrestler by crossing Mick Taylor of Wolf Creek infamy with Barry Humphries’ Sir Les Patterson.

Chris Hemsworth as Dementus in Furiosa: a Mad Max saga.

The situation hardly improves once Taylor-Joy finally enters the fray as the adult Furiosa. She fills out the role by rifling through a select repertoire of blank stares and angst-ridden glares, which makes it hard for viewers to passionately side with her character’s long-haul quest for vengeance.

Proceedings take a turn for the better with the introduction of a mentor and ally for Furiosa in the Max-ish form of Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), a seasoned road warrior with important lessons to dispense in the open-throttle arts of driving to survive.

Working within the same dusty desert hellscapes as Fury Road – settings which give the Dune saga a run for its money when it comes to filling the screen with sand – the new movie does impress with a handful of virtuoso production flourishes.

Every extended, hyper-adrenalised chase sequence meets the same inspired and intricate standards set by Fury Road.

Anja Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth in a scene from Furiosa: a Mad Max saga.

The construction and use of staggeringly ornate purpose-built settings such as Gas Town, The Bullet Farm and the ever-imposing Citadel are impressive feats of cinematic world-building that potently underline the singularity of George Miller’s vision as a filmmaker.

However, there can be no denying that the bulk of Furiosa erratically echoes the flash and thunder of Fury Road without ever unleashing a storm of its own making.

While it is definitely better than most action films you will encounter in the present era, it sits a clear notch beneath all other Mad Max instalments except Beyond Thunderdome.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga opens next Thursday May 23rd in general release.

Originally published as Mad Max 5 review: Miscast Chris Hemsworth misses the mark