Furiosa kicks sand in the face of boring franchise-filler movies
Like a war over gas in a post-apocalyptic landscape, the franchise-fatigue debate rages on, with multiple factions claiming that sequels, prequels, and superhero films are killing the cinematic landscape, while others claim the smoke doesn’t lead to fire, and the entire battle is overblown. The latest salvo in the war — which is to say, the latest prequel extending a decades-long franchise — is Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, a prequel nearly a decade in the making. But where long experience with franchise logic would lead us to expect director George Miller to offer up a louder, bigger retread of its predecessor, the groundbreaking Mad Max: Fury Road, Miller dares to ignore that expectation. He blazes a brave, exploratory trail with a searing film that refuses to play by any of the tried, tested, and tired rules that franchise films follow.
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Fury Road hit screens nine years ago with a commanding reconfiguring of the Mad Max series. Miller recast Max (played by Mel Gibson in three movies from 1979 to 1985) with The Dark Knight Rises’ Tom Hardy, pushing him into an ancillary role, and introducing a new leading hero, the battle-hardened war leader Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron). Fury Road is a visceral landmark in the action canon, relying on propulsive pacing, consciously chaotic editing, and nervy practical stunts that make the entire thing buzz with frenetic energy.
Trying to replicate that lightning in a bottle would be a fool’s errand, so Miller doesn’t even try with Furiosa. Instead, he presents an entirely different film that swaps out Fury Road’s
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