Shot by Shot Reviews of Film and TV

The best origin stories create a continuum for the character. A new context for the original story. In every film, characters emerge from nothing at the opening credits. This is point A. They cease to exist at the end credits, which is point B. A second film, be it a sequel or a prequel extends point A to the start of whichever story comes first chronologically to point B at the end of the second in line. Which means the characters also have room to live in between the events of the two stories.

This obviously creates many opportunities for storytelling, as well as many opportunities for undermining your characters and stories.

Not all characters need ‘origin’ stories. Indeed some can ruin the character in the original film. It becomes tricky because the two films give the character, or characters, two origin stories. One at the start of the original film which was a standalone story at the time and a new one at the start of the new ‘origin’ story. You don’t want them to trip one another up.

2024’s Furiosa is a curious film. It follows 2015’s Mad Max Fury Road, not as a sequel, not as a spin-off per se because it is a prequel, though again not a prequel to the titular character but one to a co-lead whose story is given a back story in exposition. Furiosa is a visualization of that expounded back story. Since there is very little new content here I can’t understand why the story was made at all instead of going ahead with a sequel for her character since Fury Road ends with her character in a position of power in a land of turmoil.

Every film in the Mad Max saga (1979) has been directed by George Miller, a wonderfully agile filmmaker whose films include the talking pig film, Babe, the animated features with dancing penguins, Happy feet 1 & 2, the romantic fantasy film about a genie, 3000 years of longing. But he has always returned to the bdsm-outfitted apocalyptic Australia where guzzoline is more valuable than gold and diamonds.

Where 2015’s Mad Max Fury Road was a formula one race only stopping for pit-stops, Furiosa is a rally competition that starts and stops every day, i.e, more episodic in nature. And those episodes contain a variety of action, in many cases topping Fury Road in scope.

Furiosa does for the title character what Max Max 1-3 did for Max. We see the beginning of Max’s story, his transition into the apocalyptic road warrior and it is the same with Furiosa in this 2 and a half hour action packed epic.

It is wonderful to get knee deep into that sandy world again. Explore places only referenced in its predecessor. The style and tone is perfectly is maintained so they make for a great duology.

My complaints are few but stick in my mind so I’m mentioning them. Let me start with the surface details – I watched Fury Road believing the entire film was shot in an arid mountain range without realising that they infact shot in a desert and inserted the mountain range around them in post production. With Furiosa, apparently it was another long and difficult shoot in a desert, but I didn’t know it at the time of watching because the majority of it felt like it had been shot in a studio with scenes landscapes feeling artificial along with many instances of obvious digital chracters in various action scenes. The other thing I can attribute that to is the upgrading of visual fidelity with the newer film. While Fury Road had been finished in 2K resolution, which covered up the seams, Furiosa’s 4k(or higher) resolution conversely made the world feel less real to me. This was a thought that struck me at various points through the film.

Moving in to the soul of the film, we come back around to a point I made at the start of this review – the second film taints the character of Immortan Joe because he does not possess the same air of grandeur and mystery he had as the heavy in the previous film. Maybe because he plays second fiddle to Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus who is the antagonist here. Donning a fake nose to help distance him from the Thor persona he is famous for, he gives it an admirable effort, but falls short character-wise thanks to two massive hurdles his muscled body and superhero charisma cannot overcome. The first is the utter lack of dread because we, the audience, know he is not there in Fury Road and Furiosa is, therefore… Is that inference a spoiler? The second is the headless chicken motivation his character is given for the length of the runtime. He does a series of things for no clear reason or at least that I understand.

If George Miller had gotten Dementus right this film would have stood as tall as Fury Road which is a modern classic in action film-making. Furiosa is thrilling, yes. It is expertly done action and character work. And perhaps it is due to the unavoidable comparison any successor must contend with, to a successful original – matching up.

I will state, don’t go in expecting Fury Road. The two films are related but not the same. One spans a few days, the other, decades. And yet once again, the experience is exceptional with the revving of engines, the explosions, the charging rhythm of the music. Furiosa will take you on a ride, and after this long spell it was great to be riding shotgun in hell again.