In the barren, baked Wasteland with no one or nothing in sight, George Miller proves there is still much more to be uncovered in his Shakespearean epic of how a myth is made, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

George Miller’s return to the directing chair fills a much-needed gap he left behind after 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road. His work at this point is indulgent in not only building out the world of the decades-spanning Mad Max franchise but flexing his brilliance to every other filmmaker who will never reach his neverending peak. Miller is not concerned with crafting a cohesive story of the Wsteland and demise of humanity, but a collection of adventures for his leading characters almost like they are plucked from their memories to broadcast to audiences worldwide.

The dystopian genre has been around for years and has recently ramped up in the 2010s mirroring our institutional collapses over the years from civil unrest to financial. Miller offers a refreshing approach to this genre mainly due to the realism apparent in every instance of this world. Miller doesn’t use a make-believe land, superheroes, or any type of fictional being portraying a vehicle of a larger idea in his story. He uses the collapse of humanity to wade through how one might adapt to the most brutal conditions of a deserted Australian terrain. A place in real life that many are advised to stay clear of so what happens when humanity is pushed to the center of absolutely nowhere? They are forced to adapt through scrapping and setting up a very imbalanced hierarchy reminiscent of historic dictatorships. Nothing is more clear about Miller’s storytelling than what he accomplishes with Furiosa, adding more miles to Mad Max through the creation of a myth from the morsels of the sand. 

Furiosa centers on the titular Imperator Furiosa first introduced in Fury Road and now getting the origin story treatment sans Mad Max. A young Furiosa hails from the Green Place until one day she is kidnapped by rangers and taken to the Wasteland where she will live out her days simply trying to survive against the brutal oppression and chaos. That latest installation fills out the rest of the Mad Max encyclopedia giving a very detailed exposition that fits perfectly before Fury Road adding a lot more nuances to the stakes at rise with these characters and the alliances within their history. Furiosa’s story is rooted in a long vengeance against the man who killed her mother, but the man who stole her childhood. What Furiosa gets at is this idea of a lost or stolen paradise, in this new normal it’s like a myth that these places could exist, and the idea of holding onto it to keep it alive in theory not execution.

While the other films in the series serve to advance the story of this dusty dystopia, Furiosa serves as a point of context. The lore of this universe is understanding how these different characters got to this point and the main cause is the breakdown of humanity. Each person has their pathway to getting to this moment in time that Miller unravels in this solo adventure. The landscape of the Wasteland is nonending but seems to have an unlimited number of avenues to go down in terms of how people have adjusted. Furiosa for example, coming from a more humane group to be thrusted into brutality quickly picks up how she must hide and move to conquer her own goals of survival. A large part of this is remembering back to her beginnings with the seed her mother left her with to reclaim her center when things get too out of hand. 

The characters of Mad Max represent this idea of holding onto hope, whether it is the shape of Immortan Joe and his War Boys or Furiosa’s odyssey to return to the Green Place that spans well beyond this film into the next.  Hope is a gap that is never filled within the people of the Wasteland, it is disguised as serving a warlord with the hopes that Valhalla is the final resting place rewarded to them for being expendable. Immorten Joe and his followers have become complicit to the new reality making the most of it to support themselves. Furiosa represents a beacon of actual hope knowing the charade of Joe and his cronies from her time at the Green Place to be able to plant an actual seed to restore humanity to its most human. 

Furiosa is simply punished for her kindness along her journey from the very beginning of securing a peach leading to her kidnapping. Again this act happens multiple times with her having a clear getaway but her remaining conscience calling her back to help those in need, Furiosa can never escape her need to rescue her fellow human even though few in her life have offered her the same sympathies. Furiosa finds herself face to face with the man who ripped everything except her dignity from her, molding her into the ultimate survivor of the Wasteland but it’s not enough to kill him. Dementus has been evil far too long to understand this woman’s vengeance towards him but his influence on a young Furiosa has crept in to take her to this moment. A never-ending cycle of cruelty that even though it’s not as drastic as Dementus she falls subject to it. Dementus using Furiosa to replace his lost ones proves that not even the one desire someone has been longing for can bring the peace they seek. He had her yet still went out and wreaked havoc amongst those who did not obey. He knows at the position she finally has him in that just like him she will never know peace.

Furiosa takes Dementus as the metaphorical holder of this cycle of brutality to plant a literal peach tree in his insides as a form of rebirthing hope for the future generation. It is to put a stop to this madness ending with him so he can face his repercussions and watch her liberation of those who also experience the idea of a lost paradise similar to her. All Furiosa seeks is to return to her innocence but doesn’t have any sins to repent for. She is in this banishment because of the men around her and she is willing to risk herself for the future of the women of the Wasteland to create a paradise of peace away from the horrors they are involuntarily subjected to. Furiosa is using the societal damage of the men surrounding her to build a literal new garden to feed the minds of the future. She never allows herself to take the position of a victim in the scope of a “feminist” story. She simply adapts without sacrificing her empathy which will lead her to overtaking the sick male egos versus being a representation of all its faults. 

Miller has established a trademark for his filmmaking style that is unlike anything else. The whip-fast editing techniques stitch these enormous action sequences like a haphazard quilt keeping the eyes glued to each move. Like a choreographed dance of people ill-equipped to fight falling subject to their errors with one wrong step. The realistic nature of these characters never relies on supernatural abilities; instead the endurance they build from living amongst the ruins of society is the name of the game in Miller’s battle sequences. Furiosa as a woman has grown up knowing to keep one eye open amongst the testosterone-filled habitats she finds herself in making her fighting style extremely punctual, never missing a beat. Engines reviving in the loudest volume with dust storms enhance every sense of the body as you quite literally feel the grime and gore of the frames. Miller has made a society in the societal collapse of Australia. 

Furiosa is a two-hour teaser feat that pays homage to Charlize Theron’s interpretation of the character and gives the official myth-making treatment to the reclamation of the Wasteland.

Grade: A

Oscars Prospects:
Likely: Best Editing, Best Sound, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects
Should be Considered: Best Director

Where to Watch: In Theaters