I have not seen any Mad Max films until last night, based on what I saw, I won't be bothering again...
You may think it is an odd choice, watching the newest instalment in a movie franchise without watching the rest. However, this is a prequel and it was actually Jamie's choice of film and as such it is safe to say that after this and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, he is no longer allowed to pick the movies we watch.
Furiosa focuses on the character of the same name. This much was a given. The character is mute for the majority of the film, and we basically follow the torment the girl goes through and how she adapts all through the actions of an insane wasteland leader, Dementus. The narrative follows how a young Furiosa, kidnapped and forced to live with Dementus' clan until she shows them her homeland 'abundance', manages to escape his clutches and then works and grows to a position to exact revenge upon him for killing her mother and taking her childhood.
I have to say, the best character of this movie was Chris Hemsworth's fake nose. That thing deserves an oscar for how serious it was in such a disappointing movie.
The second best character is Praetorian Jack. He's played by Tom Burke, and while he didn't last long I love Mr Burke and so this is probably the only reason why I didn't absolutely slate the movie.
Something both myself and Jamie noticed was the fact that the CGI in this movie seemed so tacky and obvious. Hemsworth is an Avenger, we've seen good CGI, and we aren't in the 90s anymore, but the CGI in The Mummy Returns (banging film, but if you remember the scorpion king you'll know what I mean) beats what was used in this film hands down. It also seemed to get worse as the long distance shot was used or if the camera panned. I've seen better special effects in children's movies!
I also think the movie was too long. At 148 minutes, there was too much going on and the movie seemed to be focusing on all the wrong things. We seemed to see an awful lot of sand and tyre tracks or lots of watching motorcycle drives, but not actually anything interesting. We then get wind of the grand 40 days war and didn't see a second of it. So what could have been a scene dedicated to some bloodshed and more explosions which seemed to be the theme of this movie, we got Furiosa making awkward eye contact with the steampunk Winston Churchill wannabe with the nipple fixation.
That's another thing about this movie, what on earth is going on with all these weirdos? I get the martyrs and the pain junkies, but what is with that man and his nipple? Or the fact dementus ripped off his own nipples for the giggles? Maybe I'm missing something, but aside from everyone being insane, which we already knew, I don't see a reasoning for the nipple thing of that political man. Then again all the officials in the Citadel seemed brain dead aside from Immortan Joe and Praetorian Jack. One was evil (later on apparently) and the other had his head on right.
Furiosa is split into 5 chapters, all of which show a different tactic for her survival as well as a different stage of her life. However, I can't help but think the film was actually all about Dementus and not Furiosa. I know we all need an antagonist to get the plot moving, but he seemed to be our main focal point and where Furiosa was mainly mute, I guess she just faded into the background. We didn't really focus much on her at all until we see her escape the wives and pretend to be a dogman until she is discovered by Jack and then she is accepted as herself rather than hiding. I honestly think we could have cut away a lot of this movie and instead focused on that war and more of the tensions between the warlords as in retrospect we only got glimpses of this. We focused too much on Dementus and pretended it was because of the beef between him and Furiosa, but in reality no one really cares about her character in the grand scheme of the franchise. It was just a way to market a known character and expand the brand, yet the story wasn't really even about her. Yes it looks like it all ties in nicely with the films set 20 years or so after, but we only have a glimpse really of how we ended up there as we focused on the wrong story. Where we should have been in the thick of it, we focused on a minor character having a minor beef with a warlord who was trying to take over. We missed all the war talk as Furiosa wasn't relevant enough to be in the room for that, we missed the battles and threats. What we did see was a lot of sand, driving, and those painted white men kamikazing off things. She didn't even fight to get home all that hard. We didn't even really know the stars she tattooed on her arm was a map home until almost the end of the movie...
There are some positives for this film. I know I haven't painted a great picture of it so far and in my defence Jamie didn't like it either, but I promise we'll move onto the good bits in a minute. Jamie felt that this movie actually ruined the franchise he enjoyed as it seemed quite boring. It has a lot of the typical motor chases and explosions, not to mention a lot of killings and war talk, but it all seemed quite pointless. The movie didn't really progress in anyway, we are aware of the cause of the war, and people talk about how it moves on, but we don't really see it, then we miss the war entirely. Pointless.
I liked the steampunkish element to the costumes and film as a whole. Not overly sure of the doll heads randomly used on belt buckles and the like, but hey ho. Looking at Dementus' cape transform during the movie was a form of art in itself. What started out white turned red with a white trail toward the end. Following the move to Gastown this became black with red toward the middle and the white end. When Furiosa dons this cape to stalk him she looks like the grim reaper, an angel of death. When Dementus wears this we see it echo his mental state, peace, war, death. The fact each colour remains stands as a reflection of how the character has grown and it intimately mirrors Furiosa's own journey from grief to bloodshed to death.
Surprisingly, I could see what was going on through most of the movie so the cinematography and lighting were really good. I also liked the consistency of the steel works and hard metal throughout the movie. Everything was made with something left over, it was all make do. Very industrial.
I also liked gender roles being challenged. In the first chapter we see the biker horde all assume a man is trying to kill them and ask Furiosa if it is her 'pa' coming to rescue her. They are all then struck down by her mother who until her capture was a force to be reckoned with. We then see this again later as Furiosa herself pretends to be a boy but is clearly better at everything and then it is just respected as soon as she is revealed to be a woman.
You have to give it to the actors in this movie. They gave it their all and it isn't their fault the story was lacking as a whole. Anya Taylor-Joy, despite not saying much and just using those eyes of her to her advantage, was brilliant and didn't seem to shy away from being covered in god knows what nor climbing things and being tossed around. Tom Burke was stoic but his eyes showed his emotions as always. Chris Hemsworth was a delight and quite humorous despite the nose doing nothing for him, but I found his character a little forced and I'm starting to think he's actually being type cast as a dumb type character whether this be evil or not. Everyone else I applaud just for keeping a straight face in those costumes.
Overall I give Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga a 4/10. It was vaguely watchable, I didn't fall asleep like the film last week which I'll publish in the next few days. But it just isn't my sort of thing and judging by Jamie's reaction it was disappointing. It did seem like it let down the hype built by the previous movies, it just wasn't as epic as I was led to believe.
Have you seen this movie? What did you think? Leave a comment on my socials!
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