George Miller is a filmmaker with an interesting creative output. His first feature film, the original 1979 Mad Max, later led to two sequels in the 1980s and then the 2015 masterpiece Mad Max: Fury Road. In addition to that, he has directed films with nothing in common with the Mad Max franchise, such as The Witches of Eastwick, and the wholesome family films Happy Feet and Babe (and their respective sequels). However, Mad Max: Fury Road was kind of like lightning in a bottle for him. It was a critical darling that went onto make money and be nominated for multiple Academy Awards. It was a popcorn movie that was taken seriously by the critic elite.  

And to be honest, I think Miller the only director in the game right now who can make this kind of movie this well. But when you tell me there’s going to be a prequel to one of the greatest action films I’ve ever seen, I’m going to think about what that story could be and what we’re going to learn about the fascinating woman we met in the movie where we met her. And Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga gives you our titular heroine’s backstory, but isn’t telling us much we don’t already know about her interior life and where she came from.

We meet a young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) who lives in the Green Place, a bright spot in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where she lives in a very Wonder Woman-ish matriarchal society. Food, water and other resources are scarce in this world but everything is abundant in the Green Place. One day she is kidnapped by a warlord leader Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) and his minions. Trying constantly to escape, years pass and 20-something Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) finds herself farther away from home than ever. Military leader Jack (Tom Burke) takes her under his wing, and she begins to plot her revenge against Dementus and find her way home.
 
Anya Taylor-Joy takes an impossible task and makes it look effortless. She is fierce and ferocious and is doing a lot of silent movie star acting, which is needed to play the soft-spoken but hardened titular heroine. She’s paying homage to the Charlize Theron performance but also making this her own in a lot of ways. Her very expressive eyes are doing a lot of the work, but you feel every bit of the physicality and ruthlessness of this characterization. She’s impossible to take her eyes off of, and she was the perfect person to play the younger version of this character.

Chris Hemsworth is having the time of his life in a villain role. I wasn’t sure initially what I thought of this performance. He’s wearing a prosthetic nose and a very dramatic mustache, but he makes it work. The performance is big and broad. He’s camping it up like he never has before – at one moment hilarious and another terrifying. But I feel like this kind of character might be something Hemsworth should pay attention to moving forward in his career. Like many of his peers at Marvel, he has been floundering a bit trying to find where his lane is post superhero franchise. And this is not the first time Hemsworth has played a charming villain. I would like more of this, please.

Furiosa is always a lot to marvel at visually, and also a lot to take in on a purely visceral level. Seeing this film on a giant screen with a great sound system is a must, because you feel the explosions and the gunshots and the motors revving and the crunching of the metal. Much of the original Fury Road crew is returning for Furiosa, but cinematographer Simon Duggan is new to the franchise, and you’d never know it. In addition to the striking visuals, the editing and score and bombast of this grand production makes for a deeply immersive experience. One negative thing must be addressed, however. There’s a choice made in the end credits that feels like a terrible decision that is going to welcome comparisons that will not work in this movie’s favor.

Prequels and sequels are a tough game, and I get it, it’s kind of impossible to top what’s accomplished in Mad Max: Fury Road, and Furiosa is so damn good so much of the time, but it ultimately stops just short of the levels of greatness established by Mad Max: Fury Road. It’s still a brilliantly made, thrillingly paced, visceral and dazzling thrill ride, and the perfect reason to go to the movies. But I would have liked to have learned a little bit more about the kind of person Furiosa was before these terrible things just started happening to her at a rapid pace. However, I suspect for the majority of audiences, what’s here will be more than enough.