I’m not so mad for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – but don’t take my word for it
The original Mad Max in 1979, starring an unknown Mel Gibson, changed the face of Australian film-making. Does Furiosa live up to the hype?
The original Mad Max in 1979, directed by 34-year-old George Miller and starring an unknown Mel Gibson, changed the face of Australian film-making. It made more than $100m at the global box office and jump-started a golden period of new wave Australian cinema.
I want to pay this due credit at the start because I think Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the fifth instalment in the franchise, is an average film. It is nowhere near as good as its 2015 predecessor, Mad Max: Fury Road, which won six Oscars.
This prequel to Fury Road, set about two decades earlier, is the origin story of Imperator Furiosa, previously played by Charlize Theron. This time she is Ayla Browne as a child and Anya Taylor-Joy as a young woman. The latter is impressive when the film revs into high gear over its final third.
Furiosa, like Max Rockatansky when it all started, seeks revenge. Something horrible happens to her mother at the hands of Dementus (an almost unrecognisable Chris Hemsworth), the leader of a biker gang.
Her pursuit of Dementus expands our knowledge of The Wasteland, the post-apocalyptic landscape of a futuristic Australia. She crosses paths with other warlords and the action scenes have their spectacular moments, especially one involving a war rig.
She also wants to find her way home, to the Place of Abundance from which Dementus kidnapped her as a child (this is shown in the overlong opening section on the child Furiosa).
The cinematography (by Simon Duggan, who filmed Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby) is a highlight. The blood red skies, the arid earth are part of the fight for survival in this antipodean dust bowl.
“Today,’’ Dementus announces at one point,’’ “we dance to Darwin.”
This film is directed and co-written by Miller. The co-writer, Nico Lathouris, also co-wrote Fury Road. Some of the other characters from that movie return, including Angus Sampson as The Organic Mechanic. And there is a for-the-fans moment that suggests the presence of Mad Max himself.
All the bits and pieces are there to continue this landmark series but the outcome result fails to leave an impression. It lacks oomph.
If you like the Mad Max movies, go see this one. I’m sure other viewers, other critics will be rate it more highly than I do. And such difference of opinion is how it should be. It would parallel an earlier dystopian drama, George Orwell’s 1984, if we all agreed on everything all the time.
One thought that has stuck in my mind is whether Chris Hemsworth could be The Judge in Blood Meridian, now that a film of Cormac McCarthy’s “unfilmable” 1985 novel looks possible, with Australia’s John Hillcoat as director.
It’s interesting to watch Hemsworth, who hammered to stardom as Thor, as Dementus, a role unlike any he has had before, including the prosthetic nose that makes him look far less god-like.
Dementus’s quasi-religious homilies do remind me of The Judge. Hillcoat directed the 2009 adpatation of McCarthy’s 2006 novel The Road. Choosing The Judge, who in the novel is more than two metres tall, albino and hairless, is a huge casting call. Could Hemsworth do it? I’d love to see him give it a go.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (MA15+)
145 minutes
In cinemas from May 23
★★★
