Skip to main content

A Review of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)”

 

image

Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the best action movies ever made. I have been craving for another Tom Hardy sequel for years! I understand that because of the lawsuit with WB is the reason why the sequel still hasn’t happened. For now, we have a prequel concerning Charlize Theron’s character, Furiosa, from Fury Road. Is this a worthy entry in the Mad Max saga?

image

One enjoyable thing about the Mad Max films is that they all feel very different. Furiosa is no exception. It is a very gang-driven, political and revenge-filled story. We get a lot of world-building on how the Wasteland is operating with all its factions. Seeing the political tension between the previous villain Immortan Joe and the new villain Dementus is very engaging. It is also interesting to see a calmer and smarter Immortan Joe. I also like that we get to see what “The Green Place” looked like as we only got tiny mentions before. The prequel story also successfully expands more on how Furiosa is where she is by the time of Fury Road. By the end, I do sympathise with her more.

image


On that note, Anna Taylor Joy does a good job as a younger Furiosa. She doesn’t have much dialogue but she does great through facial and body performance alone. Chris Hemsworth is the highlight of this film though as the villain Dementus. He is clearly having a lot of fun and does a great job of hamming it up. His villainous speeches are thoroughly entertaining! The rest of the supporting cast do a wonderful job as well but special praise to Lachy Hulme as a younger Immortan Joe. He does a terrific job living up to the previous actor Hugh Keays-Byrne. One of the most important things of a Mad Max film is the action and there is certainly a lot of it. Every action set piece is a marvellous spectacle with its over-the-top violence and incredibly well-made wasteland vehicles.

image

Unfortunately, the action scenes here just aren’t as great to look at as it was in Fury Road. This is because the CGI and colour grading are just not that well done in Furiosa. Fury Road did a majority of the action practically while CGI was used subtly to enhance the movie. Furiosa has a fair amount of action scenes that are not done practically. We have action set pieces that are entirely CGI or scenes that contain lots of green screens. These CGI are very noticeable and can pull you out of the movie. The colour grading is just orangey for the most part and looks way too clean for an apocalyptic movie. Visually, Furiosa just doesn’t look as nice and the cinematography never quite mesmerises me. 

image


Junkie XL returns to compose the music for Furiosa. His score for Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the most amazing things ever. However, his music score is so incredibly underwhelming in Furiosa. It doesn’t help that the action scenes are oddly silent when they would greatly benefit from an epic soundtrack. Junkie XL feels wasted this time. The movie also lacks the kinetic and fast-paced editing that you would expect from director George Miller but here it just feels generic. The movie is also 148 minutes long (28 minutes longer than Fury Road) and you definitely feel it. There are a fair amount of moments where the pace is quite slow and the last 20 minutes of the movie does drag a bit.

image

Overall, Furiosa is still an enjoyable movie but it doesn’t quite live up to Fury Road. Still, it is impressive that George Miller was able to make this when he was nearing 80 years old. I am still looking forward to a Tom Hardy Mad Max sequel that will blow me away again because Furiosa doesn’t quite do that. 



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A “QUICK!” Review of “The Prosecutor (2024)”

  The Prosecutor is an interesting film, as it’s actually a legal-focused thriller first and foremost, with the martial arts action coming second. I found this blend of genres to work surprisingly well, and I give Donnie props for trying something different. The movie features a phenomenal opening action sequence and an incredible climactic one too. When it comes to the action scenes, you definitely won’t be disappointed. However, the legal aspect—which makes up the majority of the film—is unfortunately a bit lacklustre and predictable. I wish the courtroom scenes had explored more of the complexities of the justice system and delivered more intense drama. It didn’t help that the villain was incredibly one-dimensional. Still, it’s an entertaining action movie overall, and this film does show that Donnie knows how to handle action.
Post a Comment
Read more

A “QUICK!” Review of “65 (2023)”

  I love Dinosaurs I also love Sci-Fi However, this Dinosaur and Sci-Fi movie doesn’t work. There is barely any plot, barely any character depth, and a severe lack of dialogue. I don’t know why the writer made the characters unable to speak the same language because it just hinders the character interactions. They don’t even explain what mission our main character was on and why the girl was there. It also has a lot of questionable things such as why a futuristic ship couldn’t sense an asteroid belt, yet the main character has a sensor that works great on the ground. The director and writer don’t make us care enough about anything. So you should not care to watch this.
Post a Comment
Read more

A “QUICK!” Review of “Heart Eyes (2025)”

  Heart Eyes has the makings of a really cool modern slasher character. The killer’s design is pretty cool, and the concept of killing couples on Valentine’s Day is a novel idea. The movie even starts off well with some creative kills. However, the movie goes downhill from there. It turns into an incredibly corny romcom—the dialogue is sappy, and the characters feel cartoonish. The movie then whiplashes between romance and horror, as if suddenly remembering there’s a killer on the loose. At one point, in the middle of a chase, the characters start opening up to each other—which was definitely not the time. Meanwhile, the killer becomes increasingly incompetent, failing to take out the main characters. The comedy doesn’t land, the romance is bland, but the kills are at least enjoyable. Just don’t go into this expecting a full-on slasher horror movie.    
Post a Comment
Read more