Miller’s fabulous heroine rides again to that relentless revving
Hemsworth is a treat and risks stealing the whole show, flexing his comedy chops along with those muscles
Furiosa
148 mins, cert 15 ★★★★✩
FOLLOWING 2015’s spectacular Fury Road, George Miller returns to the Mad Max franchise, this time telling the origin story of Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron in the previous film). All the questions you may have asked yourself about the feisty fighter — where she came from, how she lost her arm, how she came to be working for Immortan Joe — are answered here.
Furiosa first appears as a child (played by Alyla Browne) with her companion Valkyrie. These two girls live with a community in an oasis in the middle of Australia — it’s all solar panels and inhabitants in hippy-dippy blue outfits.
But Furiosa is captured and taken to Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), who looks like he stepped straight out of a biblical epic. But this man is a petrolhead and his only god is oil and the power it brings. He also rides a chariot driven by three motorbikes, in keeping with his swords and sandals aesthetic.
Hemsworth, resplendent with flowing hair and beard and an impressive prosthetic nose, is a treat and risks stealing the whole show, flexing his comedy chops as well as those famous muscles.
He flaunts a codpiece and sports a little teddy bear, which has its own back story. Dementus is such an entertaining villain that we risk yet another prequel in which his tale gets told.
But back to Furiosa: while still a child, she is traded by Dementus and falls into the hands of Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), who rules the Citadel with the aid of his two sons. Furiosa’s future is to be that of a wife, but she has other plans.
She escapes the upper reaches of the citadel and works as a mechanic, her gender and identity hidden. The years pass and Anya Taylor-Joy picks up the reins as the eponymous heroine.
Furiosa is virtually silent throughout and Taylor-Joy uses those fabulously expressive eyes to convey many emotions — a post-apocalyptic Lillian Gish, if you will. It is while tinkering with the mega-machines that she meets the Citadel’s top driver, Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), and here a romance of sorts sparks among the plugs and petrol. Burke doesn’t have too much screen time but he makes every moment count.
There are convoluted plots involving Gastown and Bullet Town, and the fight for domination between Dementus and Immortan Joe. And of course, there are myriad action sequences, with the most improbable stunts, explosions and rollovers that go on and on, the noise of the revving engines constant and relentless.
For all the depiction of humanity destroying nature, this film is almost as in thrall to those gas-guzzling machines as Dementus. It might not reach the heights of its predecessor, but Furiosa is a furious ride with three utterly watchable leads. Taylor-Joy has done Theron proud as this fabulous vengeful heroine.
• In cinemas from today