Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

I had hopes for more action and crazy stunts. Less CGI and a more solid story.

Instead I got bored, there was 10x more dialog.

The story on how Furiosa escaped was full of holes (a cult desperate for young healthy woman completely looking past her for years on end??).

Dementus was a glorified comedian and someone you could not take seriously. They couldn't even use the same voice effects for Immortan Joe as the 1st movie so he sounded like a small boy.

The 30 day war was a 10 second nothing.

It's a good movie but no way contends with the action scenes and stunts from fury road. It missed that action movie, edge of your seat vibe.

I witnessed it and It did not ride through the gates of Valhalla shiny and chrome.

Pretty good movie. Enough action and with enough speed for the most part. Fun to see the three major settlements back from the 2015 mad max saga.

In the begin I did worry a little bit about the green screen effect what I did notice but that feeling faded away over time.

There is however one big negative and that was the last 20/30minutes. Slow paced, little bit boring and dragged on.. I was kinda waiting for the movie to just end. Its a shame because it makes you leave the theaters with a bad taste for a pretty good movie.

Actors were decent, script decent, action decent, green screen decent (but could been better), story line decent (except ending).

All by all 7out of 10.

Max Mad fan here, I would rate previous movies: Mad Max around a 6, Road Warrior 8 Thunder Dome 7 Fury Road 9 and speaking of Fury Road....

This is unfortunately a pale comparison to Fury Road. The look is off everything from camerawork to editing to the costumes to vehicles to action scenes. Loads of bad CGI replaces the high octane realistic crazy stunts and motor mayhem from fury road. It all looks shot in a studio with fake everything. Big drop in quality and a sense of realism.

It's sad to see that Miller has settled for the studio instead of real vehicles in real environments with neck breaking stunts. Both clothes and vehicles just looks very designed now as well instead of a somewhat believable mishmash of what can be found in the wastelands. It's also a-lot cleaner in every way, vehicles look shiny and newly made. It just feels more censored and less naked and rough.

The story surprises nobody and is pretty much exactly what you expect. Void from a lot of the epic action scenes you might have to expect after fury road. You get some decent action but Fury Road is the gold standard here and this is not even close. Look and feels more like a cookie cutter action movie set in the Mad Max universe. Had I have to guess without knowing it I would never have guessed that Miller directed this. The world building is cool though and you get more of the cool world of Mad Max so that is a big plus.

Actors do a decent to a good job all around.

Immortan Joe is not impressed.

MEDIOCRE!!!

Furiosa would be easier to watch if Fury Road never happened. After the incredible cinematography magic that genius John Seale weaved, Furiosa felt just like some lacklustre adaptation of a far superior source material.

Only thing I found charming was the overall 80's feel, resembling the style of a Road Warrior, and some scenes feel like they were recreated straight from the original trilogy. While action sequences are, as expected, top notch, the epic sense of awe and sheer crazy excitement that ludicrous stunts and choreography brought us in Fury Road was lacking. Editing was sometimes atrocious. Even in the best action or "poignant" scenes this movie had to offer, I never felt that I'm watching it from the edge of my seat, nor did I get emotionally involved with any of characters.

Speaking of which, acting was fairly wooden, lines declamatory delivered, the script overall seemed recycled and overly done, bordering on boring. Storytelling was chaotic, rushed and dragged at the same time. Sometimes the unnecessary narrator helped things to move along, unfortunately in a bad way.

But the major flaw was that there was no hero's journey for any of characters. Furiosa is the same person at the beginning as she is at the end of a movie, same as Dementus. Remember Nux and his journey? There is nothing like it in Furiosa. Furthermore, Furiosa endures every hardship with the same fierce look in her eyes - we never see pain, never fear, never doubt. She shrugs any injury off, like a terminator. It was hard to get emotionally involved with her character. Unfortunately, she came across as a classic girl boss, amazing in everything she does from the start to the finish, as a kid, and as an adult. Relationship between Furiosa and Praetorian Jack is so robotic and unemotional it's painful to watch. Dementus's monologue at the end was a snoozefest. All in all, I witnessed it, and found it mediocre.

It would be folly to try and outdo Fury Road and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is smart enough to not even attempt that. It's a completely different film in its structure which allows it to be a prequel that tells a complete story on its own whilst still enhancing Fury Road with its world building. The fact that George Miller is still telling stories in the wasteland at this scale is a real gift.

Alyla Brown gets a lot more screen time than child versions of pre-established characters usually get and with next to no dialogue she is superb at communicating everything without words. Carrying that on for the second half, Anya Taylor-Joy does a phenomenal job and was right to fight to keep the scream in. If you need someone to act exclusively with their eyes, she is as perfect as they come.

Chris Hemsworth is clearly relishing the opportunity to play a properly mad villain with Dementus and has so many chill inducing moments. This is easily the best he's been so far, completely unhinged with just enough depth to explain everything he does. He's a complicated figure who always seeks power but is never able to truly hold onto it.

George Miller truly is a genius when it comes to exploring this franchise. Getting to see a fully realised Gas Town and Bullet Farm allows this world to cohere like never before and the action crafted here is so epic with gorgeous imagery that refuses to slow down. Just like John Seale achieved last time, Simon Duggans's cinematography can keep the action clean no matter what's thrown at it.

It makes sense that the only way Tom Holkenborg could come close to his best work on Fury Road was to return to the wasteland and his score here continues to compliment the kineticism of the action so well. The only downside is the CGI which looks pretty bad at various points and stands out further because of how well Fury Road implemented it.