Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
There is a version of the Mad Max franchise that exists almost entirely as mood and motion, a series defined less by plot than by the particular texture of post-apocalyptic Australia baking under a merciless sun. George Miller created that world back in 1979 with the original Mad Max, refined it into something genuinely iconic with Mad Max 2, and then spent the better part of three decades away before returning in 2015 with Fury Road, a film that arrived to near-universal acclaim and a clutch of Academy Awards. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, released in 2024, is Miller's follow-up to that film, and rather than a direct continuation, it is an origin story, tracing the early life of the one-armed warrior played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road. The film positions itself as an epic, spanning years rather than days, and asking whether the wasteland mythology can sustain a more conventional narrative structure alongside its trademark sensory assault.
Miller, now in his late seventies, made Furiosa through his own production company Kennedy Miller Mitchell, co-produced with Domain Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros. The budget was reported at around 168 million US dollars, making it a genuine studio-scale undertaking. What is worth knowing going in is that Miller wrote the screenplay alongside Nico Lathouris, and the pair apparently developed a full written history of the character long before cameras rolled. The result is a film with a noticeably different structure to Fury Road, built around episodes or chapters rather than a single propulsive chase. Anya Taylor-Joy takes over the role of Furiosa for the bulk of the film (the younger version is played by Alyla Browne, who carries considerable weight in the opening section). Taylor-Joy is an interesting choice, a performer whose work tends toward controlled intensity rather than outward aggression, and that quality shapes the character considerably. Chris Hemsworth, playing the flamboyant warlord Dementus, takes a sharp turn away from the heroic roles that defined his decade in the Marvel universe (those curious about that trajectory might find it interesting to revisit something like Thor: Ragnarok, where he first showed a genuine gift for this kind of heightened, theatrical villainy). Tom Burke rounds out the key cast as Praetorian Jack, a figure whose place in the story carries more emotional weight than the marketing particularly suggested.
The film lands in a slightly complicated cultural position. Fury Road was, for many critics, the definitive modern action film, so any prequel faces the task of justifying its own existence without simply replicating what came before. Whether Furiosa manages that, and what it gains or loses in the attempt, is precisely the sort of question worth sitting with before you read what follows.
I liked Furiosa (directed by George Miller) a lot more than Fury Road, which is a pleasant surprise given how disconnected I felt from that film. This one actually has a proper story, clear stakes, a journey with purpose, and characters who feel like they exist beyond just the next set piece.
The action scenes are brilliant when they need to be, but they're not just noise for noise's sake. And thank goodness that jarring, sped-up camera style is used very sparingly here; it doesn't distract from the tension the way it did before.
That said, it's not without its quirks. The world still feels a bit too video-gamey. More Borderlands than the gritty, sun-bleached Australia I remember from the earlier films. And some of the character names are just ridiculous; you spend half the film trying to remember who's who because everyone sounds like they were named by a random fantasy generator. But once you accept the tone, it's easier to just go with it. The villains are decent, Anya Taylor-Joy is quietly fierce in the lead, and the pacing (while long) never feels indulgent.
One last thing, and I'll keep this brief: Praetorian Jack is, in my view, a far better "Max" than Tom Hardy ever was in Fury Road. He's got that weary, capable energy that feels true to the spirit of the character, even if he's not technically Max. It's a small footnote, but it mattered to me.
Furiosa is a really solid entry in the saga, flawed, yes, but coherent, visceral, and emotionally grounded in a way the previous film wasn't. If you can look past the occasionally silly names and the video-game aesthetic, there's a proper adventure here. I walked away satisfied, which is more than I can say for Fury Road. Worth a watch, especially if you're invested in the world, or just fancy a decent action film with a bit more fuel than you'd expect.
Furiosa will not displace Fury Road in the esteem of those who consider that film a high-water mark of the genre, and it probably was not designed to. What it does, by most reasonable measures, is offer something different within the same mythology: a slower burn, a more legible story, and a central performance built on restraint rather than spectacle. Miller remains one of very few filmmakers capable of working at this scale while keeping a personal sensibility intact, which is no small thing. Whether you are a long-standing follower of the franchise or coming to it relatively fresh, the film rewards patience and a willingness to meet its particular brand of sun-scorched maximalism on its own terms. After nearly five decades in the wasteland, it turns out there is still petrol in the tank.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2024 | Watched: 2026-06-07
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) on YouTube
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