Yesterday, I briefly mentioned my thoughts on George Miller’s “Furiosa,” which I was semi-disappointed by. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a “good” movie and you’ll no doubt be thrilled by some of the action set-pieces, but this is also the most bloated ‘Mad Max’ installment to date.
“Furiosa” is long, it’s 2 hours and 28 minutes and sprawls through, with much ambition to spare. Where “Mad Max: Fury Road” was set over three days, “Furiosa” takes place over 15 years and tells the origin story, in five chapters, of its titular protagonist.
Chris Hemsworth is the villain, Dementus, and he doesn’t necessarily stretch his acting skills here as much as just chews up the scenery. Anya Taylor-Joy is, sadly, no Charlize Theron, but she gets the job done, even though she barely has any lines of dialogue. They make a formidable duo — although not coming remotely close to the hypnotic tension between Hardy and Theron.
The story is a revenge tale. Dementus took a very young Furiosa away from her home and killed her mother. Many years later, our heroine wants revenge. She teams up with Immortan Joe, and his powerful army, who also seek revenge on Hemsworth’s baddie.
Some of the visuals in “Furiosa” are so unhinged. wild jaw-dropping beautiful. There are stunts that reminded me of the breathless action in “Fury Road.” The problem is that, this time around, Miller has decided on a stop-and-go rhythm for his story, opting for less action and more focus on world building and side characters.
The visual poetry of its predecessor is also missing in favor of lots of cars, weapons, machinery and, sadly, familiarity. Miller, predictably, opts for spectacle and grand scale over the tightly visceral cinema that energized ‘Fury Road.’ It’s a tad too shapeless, trying to cram in so much story into its runtime that its revenge plot, Furiosa vs Dementus, can come off as a tad too empty and uninvolving.
Miller caught lightning in a bottle with “Fury Road.” There was no way “Furiosa” could top that one. There was barely any fat in ‘Fury Road’. Whereas, “Furiosa” has fat … the result is a half-satisfying film that, if trimmed down, could have been a knockout.
With that said, I don’t think we’ll be getting a better action movie this summer than this one. Miller is still a master craftsman, and the attention to detail he brings to every frame is remarkable. He lives and breathes these films, and it shows.
"Blood on Snow" is struggling to land a distributor. That's a sketchy position for a finished film with a cast this recognizable and a director whose last film, albeit one released five years ago, was a Bond movie.