Furiosa: It's Fine

Roughly 9 years after the release of the absolutely astounding "Mad Max: Fury Road," we've been treated to yet another addition to George Miller's wacky and undeniably unique post-apocalyptic fantasy in the form of a prequel focused on the main character of Fury Road, the titular Furiosa, a movie appropriately titled, well, "Furiosa," and to be more exact for those of you out there who are into that type of thing, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. But I suppose you're probably not here looking for semantics about the name of the movie. You're here because you're wondering if it was any good. And the verdict? It's fine. To be entirely fair to the movie, I was comparing it to "Fury Road," and whether you deem that to be a fair comparison or not, it's probably undeniable that I and most everyone else was going to be either consciously or unconsciously comparing the two films. I can't exactly call Furiosa a disappointment, and the film is by and large a competent enough movie, but at the same time, I can't call it a great film either because it never truly touches greatness. Now, you might see the stellar 90% Rotten Tomatoes score and call bullcrap on this verdict of mine, but let me explain myself first before you dismiss me outright.

To throw out the obligatory spoiler-free synopsis, Furiosa follows everyone's favorite Imperator, documenting her childhood and subsequent growth into the capable survivor we know and love from Fury Road.

So, the one thing that made Mad Max: Fury Road so special was its unswerving commitment to telling a simple story. Now, one rule that any film critic worth their salt knows is that a simple story is not necessarily a bad one, and Fury Road put this rule on full display for all the world to see. In fact, I might go so far as to say that it is the definitive standard for this rule. By essentially making Fury Road one massive on-and-off chase sequence, George Miller and Co. put the characters of the film and their relationships and alliances front and center, exactly where relationships belong in a good movie. Now, Furiosa is a character-centric story as well, and this earns it some favor in my eyes for genuinely trying to ground the movie in human reality, but unlike Fury Road, this film is pretty cluttered. In essence, what I'm saying is that Furiosa tries to do way too much with its runtime and, in trying to do so much of everything, doesn't do enough of anything. The plot of this film is split into five chapters, and while this was a cool gimmick, it didn't do much to differentiate between different plot points in the film because there is simply so much going on in this movie, even with its lengthy runtime of two-and-a-half hours. Now, a movie with a lot going on isn't automatically bad. Point in case, The Godfather: Part II. However, not much in Furiosa ever feels like it's working towards the climax of the film, and that's a problem if a movie whose plot is supposed to pack throttle instead meanders all over the wilderness to every conceivable destination except the third-act climax. A good movie is always threatening to end itself, and Furiosa never truly tries to. Instead, we're left wandering between several different plot points that don't feed into the next one enough to warrant their successive existences, from a kidnapping plot point to a siege plot point to a war-rig-building plot point and so on and so forth. I was never able to shake the feeling that a lot of different people had a lot of different ideas for this movie, and the executives overseeing it didn't have the courage to say "no" to any of them.

Now, even if the plot of the movie may be lacking, the same can't be said for the performances. She may not be Cherize Theron, but Anya Taylor-Joy does a good job portraying Furiosa, embodying her determination and brokenness in equal measure. However, my favorite performance of the movie has to be Chris Hemsworth as Dementus. Furiosa's crazy warlord is absolutely arresting to watch. He's unapologetically flamboyant, incredibly unpredictable, and always fun. He is a worthy successor (predecessor?) to Fury Road's Immortan Joe, who also features in Furiosa. The performances and characterization of the film are what ultimately saved me from writing the whole thing off, as both are excellent. However, one thing that really bothered me and unfortunately ended up distracting me from the characters was the unmistakable and jarringly out-of-place VFX renderings in the movie that try and fail to support and bolster these stellar performances. The film looked airbrushed and, for lack of a better term, fake. I constantly found myself really missing the practical chases and stunts of Fury Road, which lent an undeniable air of authenticity to the visuals. Furiosa ended up looking more like a big Hollywood blockbuster than I would have liked it to, with those massive VFX environments that have 100% cool factor but 0% immersion or illusion. The demand for VFX renders in today's film market is way too high, and this, unfortunately, ties the hands of a lot of the companies that make them. This is where the stigma against CGI comes from. People complaining about CGI aren't exactly complaining about CGI, even if they think they might be. They're complaining about a lack of immersion. And Furiosa never quite breaks free from the uncanny digital valley and even has a few moments where the film looks downright terrible.

Now, all that said, even with its cluttered plot and underbaked visuals, I enjoyed Furiosa. It's not exactly high art, but it's a unique film with a unique vision that we desperately needed amidst a sea of MCU and DCU releases that dominate the cinematic market today. It's an appropriately insane as well as a pretty good movie in its own right, and so even if I may not ever be rushing to rewatch it, I'm glad I went to see it once. As for potentially objectionable content in Furiosa, it's pretty light compared to other films it's being released with. Profanity and sexual content are virtually non-existent in the movie, and even if the violence can get pretty outlandish from time to time, it's nothing outside the bounds of a low-end-to-moderately-leaning R-rated film, even if some of the violent insinuations can be disturbing. So, even if the world of Mad Max can be quite mad from time to time, I might consider Furiosa to be a pretty good entry-level-R-rated flick. However, I'm just not sure it'd be worth going to watch in a theater, given its cluttered screenplay and underdone technical aspects. Furiosa is fine. It isn't great. It isn't bad. It's just fine.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - 7/10

Deuteronomy 2:7