Furiosa is a tough film to place. Think about this: there are so many James Bond films, that it's entirely possible to see a good "Bond film" that's still barely a mediocre movie on any objective scale. The Bond universe is so thoroughly established in popular culture that you understand what you're walking into when you buy your ticket (or click your button on streaming), and you approach it with those expectations. The Mad Max universe really isn't like that. There are five films, and, in my opinion, had Fury Road not resuscitated the series in such an imaginatively outlandish way, it all may have fallen into obscurity - with the possible exception of the Road Warrior living on as a cult film.
The "Mad Max universe" really started with the Road Warrior. The original Mad Max was more of a cop and biker gang film. Much like the Terminator, Mad Max was the rare series where much of the popular imagination associated with it came from the sequel rather than the original. (Though, let us never forget Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome, a preposterous film featuring Tina Turner, a band of children, and a combat arena shaped like a giant version of the half-sphere metal spider web found on playgrounds. The film is most memorable for the catch phrase, "two men enter, one man leaves." May that movie live on in those six words and in no other way.)
Fury Road burst onto the scene three full decades after the final Mad Max film featuring Mel Gibson. Back at the helm, George Miller unleashed one of the greatest action movies in history. Check the metacritic scores; it's in legendary company. All of this is long digression back to where I started: how do you (re)view Furiosa?
It's not as good as Fury Road. That's not a knock, because few movies are that good. Furiosa manages to be both more bleak and more absurdly odd than Fury Road. Dementus, the main villain, sports a stuffed teddy bear ornament for part of the film. Fury Road featured a war rig outfitted with enormous speakers and a double-necked guitar rocked by a guy in a gimp suit. Wherever the bizarre-believable/comic-doomsday demarcation line is, Furiosa at points feels outside of it. Though, that line is not a fixed point: Fury Road itself moved it and redefined it. But, again, we're comparing a spinoff to a canonical predecessor.
And that's basically where I land. Furiosa is a great action film. It fits into the Mad Max mythology without needing to force plot points to mesh the narratives. The action scenes can feel even more over the top, but it's still riveting to watch. You certainly won't regret seeing it. If you walk out feeling bummed it wasn't as genre-smashing as Fury Road, ask yourself: had Fury Road not existed, would this film independently have redefined how I feel about action movies? We'll never know, because we live in a world where Fury Road did come out, and it did reset the bar for epic action.
But, don't let that stop you from enjoying this film, which stands on its own.
The "Mad Max universe" really started with the Road Warrior. The original Mad Max was more of a cop and biker gang film. Much like the Terminator, Mad Max was the rare series where much of the popular imagination associated with it came from the sequel rather than the original. (Though, let us never forget Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome, a preposterous film featuring Tina Turner, a band of children, and a combat arena shaped like a giant version of the half-sphere metal spider web found on playgrounds. The film is most memorable for the catch phrase, "two men enter, one man leaves." May that movie live on in those six words and in no other way.)
Fury Road burst onto the scene three full decades after the final Mad Max film featuring Mel Gibson. Back at the helm, George Miller unleashed one of the greatest action movies in history. Check the metacritic scores; it's in legendary company. All of this is long digression back to where I started: how do you (re)view Furiosa?
It's not as good as Fury Road. That's not a knock, because few movies are that good. Furiosa manages to be both more bleak and more absurdly odd than Fury Road. Dementus, the main villain, sports a stuffed teddy bear ornament for part of the film. Fury Road featured a war rig outfitted with enormous speakers and a double-necked guitar rocked by a guy in a gimp suit. Wherever the bizarre-believable/comic-doomsday demarcation line is, Furiosa at points feels outside of it. Though, that line is not a fixed point: Fury Road itself moved it and redefined it. But, again, we're comparing a spinoff to a canonical predecessor.
And that's basically where I land. Furiosa is a great action film. It fits into the Mad Max mythology without needing to force plot points to mesh the narratives. The action scenes can feel even more over the top, but it's still riveting to watch. You certainly won't regret seeing it. If you walk out feeling bummed it wasn't as genre-smashing as Fury Road, ask yourself: had Fury Road not existed, would this film independently have redefined how I feel about action movies? We'll never know, because we live in a world where Fury Road did come out, and it did reset the bar for epic action.
But, don't let that stop you from enjoying this film, which stands on its own.
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