Ryan Shoots First: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

I wasn’t able to get out to the theater until Memorial Day to see Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and I worried by then everyone would have seen it and the window for the review to be relevant would be gone. Then I saw the weekend box office numbers and it looks like none of you all went to see it, so here it is! And in that is likely a larger discussion about what is happening to the theatre-going experience. Every release this year has underperformed and been labeled a flop. No matter what it can be an established franchise like Mad Max or Planet of the Apes, it can be new IPs with big famous names like The Fall Guy, it can be family movies with big famous names like IF. None of it seems to matter and get people off the couch, meanwhile, terrible movies released on Netflix like the new Jennifer Lopez movies top the charts. In short, people seem to prefer watching slop for free than good stuff for $30-$50. I know that’s not why you came here but it has been interesting to watch this year I hear you saying Deadpool and Despicable Me will make a billion each but it’s not healthy for the whole industry to rely on only a handful of IPs. In short, Furiosa is well worth your time and I fear what the future of what gets greenlit looks like if these movies keep failing so massively.

So on to the movie, Furiosa sees the titular character from the last installment in the Mad Max series, Fury Road, on her path to who she is when we meet her in that film. So yes it is a prequel of a side character which I get hasn’t gone well in the past but with George Miller returning and Fury Road being one of the top action films of all time I can see where hopes were high. Especially when Furiosa played by Charles Theron was such a cool interesting character in Fury Road. She oozes “I’ve seen some shit” and anyone who enjoyed that movie would likely be down to see it. I have seen some criticism that people go to a Mad Max film to see Max but that doesn’t really make sense when he is only the main character in the very first film. Every other movie is him wandering into someone else’s story and going on a side quest, it is literally the whole gimmick of the franchise. 

Furiosa sees Anya Taylor-Joy take on the tar and prosthetic arm to fuel her way through the blood and sand of the wasteland in a non-stop, balls-out explosion of action. If you thought Fury Road was top-tier for its action, flow, and spectacle all of that is here for you. Some absolutely amazing sequences filled with cool vehicles, amazing stunts and premiere camera work. One particular sequence on one of the War Rigs had me laughing from the sheer awesomeness multiple times. I can see where maybe if Miller wasn’t directing people could be skeptical of the quality but he is back at the helm and everything you wanted from a Fury Road sequel is here. Along with some other characters from Fury Road like Imorten Joe we see a new foe enter the fray with Chris Hemsworth’s fake nose makeup as Dr. Dementus which is a great Mad Max name. He presents an interesting character that like many in the Wasteland we could see our heroes easily becoming in different circumstances. He brings the energy and in a rare occasion gets to use his Australian accent. 

Maybe Hollywood will figure it out, maybe they need to adjust their expectations, maybe it just takes one movie to kick everyone back into theater-going mode. I don’t know but it is a shame to keep seeing great films fail because I know every time they do some suit in a boardroom will use it as a reason to deny the next one. So I’m not going to tell you to take up the mantle and go pay for a movie, I don’t know your life and I genuinely think telling people what to do with their money is dangerous territory, but I will say that this movie is well worth the price of admission and if you are considering it, you will not regret it.