Score: 4 / 5
Mad Max: Fury Road was one of the best movies of 2015 and cemented George Miller as a visionary storyteller who can reinvent himself with madcap glee while using state of the art techniques to entertain the world. While Furiosa might not be exactly what we expected (or expected to want) after Tom Hardy filled Mel Gibson's shoes, it is certainly a worthy prequel about that film's most surprising character. Who wouldn't want to see Charlize Theron back again, kicking ass without cracking her stoic mask? She may not be back this time, but her character is: the semi-androgynous cyborg who took absolutely no shit from Max or Immortan Joe or anybody else on her quest to save the sexual slaves of a tyrannical warlord. Easily the most interesting part of Fury Road, making Max himself take the backseat, Furiosa here is shown as a younger woman growing into the hardened warrior we know she will become.
We open with a young Furiosa picking a bright red fruit from a full tree in a verdant forest known as "The Green Place." Fans will remember the quicksand wasteland from Fury Road, doused in blue, setting the stage for a key action sequence that was later revealed to be Furiosa's childhood home. A biker gang roars in to pillage as the girl capably fights back, but they capture her, leading a furious chase as her mother follows them into the desert all the way to a warlord's camp. The warlord, Dementus, impressed by her courageous violence (as she slaughters her abductors to keep the location of the Green Place a secret), crucifies her mother and adopts her to stave off his familial loneliness and hopefully eventually learn more about her paradise home.
This elaborate and high-stakes setup is the first of five chapters detailing Furiosa's life leading up to Fury Road, spanning roughly a decade of her development. It's an epic of revenge, grief, and the ever-present pull of one's home. Miller seems a little more desperate than usual to fulfill his "epic" mandate here, even making it explicit at one point near the end, as Dementus asks Furiosa if she has what it takes to make her own story epic. Knowing full well what he's doing, Miller injects tons of mythic and religious imagery and concepts into this story, from the Edenic opening to numerous crucifixions and from hellish quarries to towering platforms with diabolic temptations. And while there is no doubting the entertaining, intelligent, skilled, and spectacular prowess Miller here demonstrates -- there are, somehow, even more eye-popping visuals here than previously -- there is a disappointing abundance of CGI.
It's not always a bad thing, and these days with increased safety and security measures on film sets, it's probably for the best. Especially when the characters (and audience) are thrust into such a bizarre and fully realized world, which finally introduces us to multiple wasteland fortresses in one, including Gas Town and the gobsmackingly cool Bullet Farm. But it does make you miss his signature practical effects. Similarly, and this bothered me more than the VFX, his screenplay -- for all its scope and intents -- feels obnoxiously heavy-handed, as though he's beating us over the head with the thematic and metaphysical import of every scene through what his characters say to each other. He's throwing a lot -- a lot -- at us visually and aurally, so to be hand-held through the actual human elements of this story feels a bit infantilizing. Which is definitely not what this franchise is all about.
That doesn't stop it from being a hell of a good time. The young Furiosa, played by Alyla Browne, is immediately entrancing and impressive, physically mastering a demanding role and commanding her screen time, which lasts much longer than expected. She reminded me of the likes of Jodie Foster or Leo DiCaprio, definitely one to watch moving forward. Anya Taylor-Joy steps in later in the film as an older Furiosa, and while she performs with her usual dedication and intensity to easily successful effect, I confess myself somewhat uninterested in her as things continued. Not because of Taylor-Joy at all, but because the screenplay is simply less inventive or insightful when it comes to her. The woman of few words doesn't allow us much access to any interiority. Instead, I found the raucous character of Dementus infinitely more fascinating, helped a lot by Chris Hemsworth's utterly unhinged performance. It's a mix of his imposing muscular presence, his carefully honed comedic skills, and a calculated sinister malice he rarely gets to showcase (the notable exception being in Bad Times at the El Royale).
With its increasingly fanciful rendering of the mad world Miller created so long ago, one wonders where this franchise might go next. Might Tom Hardy return? One or more variations of Furiosa? What about more villainous excursions? After all, the villains are perhaps the most interesting and compelling characters; they are certainly who the designers have the most fun with. Even in Furiosa, a younger Immortan Joe and his sons Scrotus and Rictus Erectus make substantial appearances. Some throwbacks to the Gibson-led films would be a pleasing addition to this franchise as well. But this is the first time in the franchise that a new installment builds on and fleshes out elements of a previous entry, so it would also be a good idea for Miller to simply learn further into originality and create completely new stories and characters. Really, at this point, anything he might do would be welcome. Let us pray that Miller wants to continue playing in this hyperviolent, post-apocalyptic sandbox.
No comments:
Post a Comment