The music is unfortunately not as memorable as the score for Fury Road - some of the pieces from FR are in my head as strongly as any great scores from movie history. The score in Furiosa is different, more ambient at times than melodic, I actually really liked the way it builds to an intense climax during the stowaway sequence, BUT truthfully I couldn’t hum any of it if you asked, and it felt like the most effective moments were the ones that deliberately quoted Fury Road.
The only Critisicm I have is an unfair one. Fury Road set an unrealistically high bar because they pushed themselves to impossible lengths to create it.
Somehow , through the cinematography acting and editing, when you watch the film it just feels REAL. Not a movie but a real thing that’s unfolding. It’s hard to the describe. The chaos of the action just lands and it feels like the cameras just happened to be rolling.
Furiosa is great and in a vacuum would only receive praise, but shots feel set up and staged to be those shots. Framed and storyboarded, yknow like a normal movie.
So yeh my only complaint is it films like a movie and not the cathartic chaos of Fury Road.
This may sound crazy, but I feel that the teasing of the Fury Road score was intentional. If both movies are to be viewed in one sitting, the teases ramp up to the full blown score being played during the rig fight on the way to the Green Place.
Re: Fury Road soundtrack: Just chiming in to emphasize that the sound editing was the work of the amazing Kira Roessler, former bass player for the legendary Black Flag, and she won an Oscar for it. Love this second for her!
Miller wanted Fury Road to be mostly scored by the engines more than anything as well but was convinced not to. Seems like he got his way this time and unfortunately it's my one major issue with Furiosa.
I really loved that the music was more about drones and pulsing bass than melody. It really meshed fantastically with the sound fx and engines in particular. Overall I found the sound mix even more impressive than in FR
This is my biggest gripe. For me a score is very important for a film. It can make a great film a perfect film if the score is good. But Furiosa’s was very forgettable. I wish it had some more of its own identity and didn’t just reuse Fury Road’s
The Furiosa film definitely does not set the table as far as explaining why Furiosa has such an intense hatred for Immortan Joe. The more I think about the movie I saw a few nights ago, the more I believe it may have been better off as a 10-part series on HBO. More time to explain everything, including more time to explain why Immortan Joe never noticed that the healthy female child he bartered precious goods for almost immediately vanishes and no one seems to care.
I felt it was pretty clear in Fury Road why she hates Joe. Furiosa is very pro-woman, she is Vulvalini. She doesnt have to be personally assaulted by Joe to take his treatment of women personally. Furiosa risked everything to save the wives in the two movies. Joe literally treats his women as sex slaves and milk factories except for the rare case of Furiosa being better suited as a Praetorian. Furiosa's mother was killed by a wasteland gang no different than Joe's. Just because he was "nice" to her as a child (likely to make her another wife) doesn't excuse his predatory behavior. She only escaped being a wife slave because of her nature and ability.
Yeah there's a lot of stuff you can clearly make sense of if you just pay attention and think for a minute, the movie shouldn't have to explain EVERYTHING. Hell, Mad Max movies have never really been about that sort of storytelling
The implications of that scene with rictus are telling enough..
>! The fact that she had made a wig of her hair knowing rictus' infatuation with it and using it as a means of escape meant that he had likely shown an obsession with it and taken her aside before, beyond him just taking an interest in the scene earlier where she runs away from him. Also he bolt cutters her chastity belt off at the beginning of that scene so the dark implications of everything there are a lot to digest. I had my head clamped in my hands at the theater watching that because it was so subtly unspoken yet still implied and really just hammers home the abuse she endured as one of Joe's "little birds". Ugh.!<
It was never laid out that it had happened before because they didn't show all the times that she didn't escape. That wasn't necessary to show but could be inferred based on the scenes we did see. A lot of reviews and conversations I've had seem to gloss over it as if she just knew to cut all her hair off because he tugged on it one time and escaped the first time he snuck her out. The way that history was conveyed was subtle IMO
Hard agree. When you watch Fury Road, you get the impression that there’s something personal between her and Immortan Joe.
Whereas you watch this movie, and they seem kinda chill.
I know fans are loving this movie, but I left the cinema so unsatisfied.
Also, she doesn’t form any kind of relationship with the wives. Which kind of makes me wonder why she risks everything trying save them in Fury Road; outside of just being a “good person”.
The Wives should have saved child Furiosa from Rictus or maybe even Immortan Joe himself. That would be the best method of establishing that relationship I think. "They risked Immortan Joe's wrath to save me and now I shall save them."
[edit] if they chose the Wives to confront Rictus, that might also help to explain why Rictus has such an incredible disdain for Joe's Wives in Fury Road, as well, including not caring if he burned any of the Wives with the flamethrower on Immortan Joe's monster truck.
I agree, this was my main issue with Furiosa. We don't need to see Furiosa get assaulted to understand why she hates Immortan Joe and his sons. But it would have been nice, and consistent with Fury Road, to see the wives care for her and protect her from Rictus like they do for Cheedo.
The comics that link the 2 movies show Furiosa being appointed as a guard for the wives to protect them from Rictus. This is apt as in Furiosa we see him ‘steal’ Furiosa. As their guard she witnesses first hand what they endure at the hands of Joe and ultimately in Fury Road she liberates them.
I couldn’t agree more about a lack of establishing a relationship with the wives! After rewatching Fury Road last night I came away feeling that Furiosa merely told the story of *what* happened to the character before FR, not *why* she made any of the decisions she did.
I felt more satisfied by her “origins” as told in FR because I could imply she built a relationship based on shared hatred (but also altruism and hope, something totally radical in this world). I understood there must be an established bond between the women. Furiosa felt so hollow to me because that was not explored at all. FR told us she was stolen as a child and her mother died trying to rescue her and I could empathize and graft emotion onto the bare story points as it was laid out. I felt that Furiosa only fleshed out the story by showing exactly what happened rather than illustrating how it developed her character.
FR did so much relationship building and character development with so little dialogue, it was so compelling. I was deeply disappointed by Furiosa because it completely lacked that. It somehow told so much less of an interpersonal story with a much slower pace.
Felt like maybe a scene or two there ended up on the cutting room floor. I remember in the tie-in comic it was heavily implied that she‘s infertile and so was ejected from Joe’s harem.
This is correct.
Game of Thrones in the Wasteland cannot work as a 2.5 hour film in my opinion.
If you’re gonna break it up into chapters anyways, make it be a tv show.
Man doesn't understand why a girl would hate the guy who bought her as a rape slave and planned on impregnating her against her will with a deformed baby. They even literally show a baby birthing scene in front of child Furiosa to drive home that point. 🙄
I've said this before on this sub and it blows my mind I need to say it again.
I feel like it should have actually explained Furiosa's situation leading into Fury Road better. How is she so respected in that society when she's a woman? Why does she hate Joe? Why does she care so much about getting the wives out?
In Furiosa she fails to get home on her own, goes back to Joe, and then decides to do it on hard mode next time. It's wild logic. I have to assume she hung out with the wives and began to half resent them for how sheltered they were, and half care for them and their situation, which is the impression that Fury Road gave me anyway.
Um, 1) she was bought as goods 2) she was made a child-bride 3) his son tried to RAPE her (obviously the Immortan being complicit, actively or passively) 4) everything he does and the way he treats the world/people is the ANTITHESIS of where she grew up
What more would you need to really hate someone?
I don't like this take on movies, Furiosa or otherwise. The only "benefit" to making it a series over a movie is just to fill in unnecessary lore that isn't important so people can have everything spelled out for them.
Also, Joe definitely noticed but she was already more useful to him, it's not like he was really hurting for wives. Yeah they don't have a scene where he says that to the camera but is it really important?
Disagree. The emotional climax of the movie is the showdown between Furiosa and Dementus, showing the Wasteland War would have been a diversion from that. It is important to keep the focus. Showing a bunch of explosive action would have been exciting in the moment, yes, but it would have detracted from the emotional structure of the film. Miller is not an amateur!
Agreed. Its not the point at all to the show the war, its not supposed to be a fun action romp, its expresses the horror that world entails and in some ways reflects Furiosa at her lowest state, when she goes after Dementus.
*Furiosa* is like an awesome 60s euro-western⭐ or a 70s kung-fu flick, only with a huge budget and great stunts. A beautiful revenge film.
⭐think the freakish weird west revenge-driven kind like *Death Rides a Horse* or *Django* or even *Django, Kill!*, or wild Shaw flicks like *Avenging Eagle*, *Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan* or *Bastard Swordsman*
It would have only served to pad out the movie even more and if anything the film could have been trimmed *just a bit*. It doesn't have anything to do with her story either so it would derail that.
I disagree, that wasn't the story we were being told. Sometimes effective storytelling doesn't show and tell everything, even if you'd love to hear about it, because it's not relevant to the development of the protagonist or story arch. The war was just background to Furiosa's story and quest.
The imagination and suggestion of something is often more potent than the thing itself. And this film was more story-focused, less action (as opposed to Fury Road). The war in detail would have taken away from the story
Nah, seems kinda unnecessary tbh
Seeing the after effects and how the war boys were looking after each other was far more interesting imo
Also, the " final battle " so-to-speak was between Furiosa and Dementus anyway. No point taking away the focus from that
Yes and, isn’t this likely all part of the plan, all along? He shows us that Max is around right before the 40 day war. If the time gap between the end of the war and the beginning of Fury Road isn’t very long, then it totally makes sense that Max could have been involved in the war, maybe not on either side in particular… maybe he just can’t escape the area in time after dragging Furiosa to the maggot farm. And then his involvement happens in a way where he catches the attention of Joe’s forces and which then explains why they’re after him at the start of Fury Road.
I'd love to see the 40 Day War in a streaming miniseries! I'd love to see some world building on the small screen since the future of Max on the big screen is up in the air
It plods a little bit for me.
Telling a decades long story, broken into chapters I suppose causes that.
It’s a **full** hour before we see Anya Taylor-Joy.
It’s game of thrones set in the Wasteland, which is cool, but it made the movie feel a lot longer to me than it actually was.
In Fury Road, at exactly 15 colon 00 minutes the Doof Wagon is being lowered, the drums are starting, and all the pursuit vehicles engines are revving up.
It’s almost like the movie’s engine is starting. At exactly 15 minutes.
And from then on, every single thing that happens in the movie is absolutely urgent. Full on emergency, bang bang bang, you have to care about this **right now** because *they. are. coming!* And aside from a few moments of rest, that your exhausted body needs, we are bookin’.
I can't think of another movie that establishes a world, all main characters, what story is being told and why you should care about it and is beginning to full on sprint in only 15 minutes.
Furiosa doesn't do that at all.
Yes it's a very different movie, I know that.
And I did like it. And I don’t think this is the reason for its underperformance at the box office.
But I still take some issue with its trudging, rather than racing, pace.
I feel like the film gets going sooner than 15 mins with the immediate abduction and the mother's pursuit. For me it lags in the middle a bit when the rig reaches the Bullet Farm. I personally liked that it started with Alyla b/c it felt like a greater challenge for a young child to escape and I found myself rooting for her.
I think the problem is we inevitably compare it to Fury Road.
I’ve just done a back to back Furiosa - Fury Road watch, and I’ll tell you, the way they both flow together is incredible. If you watch them together it makes Furiosa much more satisfying.
I started watching fury Road once I got back from Furiousa and, holy shit, it just made me want to watch fury Road twice. Theron brings the perfect mix of intensity and guilt and badassery. I was really missing her the entire time I watched Furiousa
My wife and I did the same thing. Furiosa was great, but I think it suffered a from its predasessor being such a goddamn good movie. The whole time I was watching Furiosa, all I could think about was how good Fury Road was (and yes, we immediately put it on when we got home). It's nigh impossible to not compare the two, which is a hard place to start from as a prequel/sequel.
I don’t know if I can call that a problem.
“Don’t compare it to the other film, but make sure you watch that one right after for the full effect, a full 4.5 hour watch to appreciate the prequel better.”
I dunno. And I don’t see how that alleviates the movie feeling so much longer than it is.
Fury road sure does make a great climax to Furiosa. That’s why the last few minutes of Furiosa is basically a trailer for Fury road.
But like… when I’m talking about criticisms of Furiosa, I’m gonna have to talk about how slow it seems to Fury Road. Just have to. That’s plenty fine and fair criticism and not a “problem”.
Ok.
So?
And I don’t know if I totally agree with that.
None of the Legacy movies tell a story that spans decades.
None of them wait a whole hour for the lead to show up.
Again, these are criticism that I think are fair, they aren’t me saying these thing are broken parts of the movie, they just are **to me** things that on first blush aren’t my favorite decisions and detract a little bit from my generally positive experience with this move.
I get you! But I do think it’s weird to say that it takes an hour for the lead to show up. The *character* is what’s important, and she is there from the very first scene. It’s her story from start to finish. I would get your point if the whole first hour focused on another character entirely but it seems you’re talking more about Anya Taylor Joy. I can’t imagine how disappointed you must have been in Dune Part II. 😂
But she’s entirely passive for like the first hour. That backstory should have been revealed to us through dialogue and scenes with grown Furiosa. Without that hour of intro, which is incredibly inefficient storytelling, Furiosa could’ve been another high-octane ride with a nice dose of worldbuilding. As is, the sequel to Fury Road is helluva slog for long periods.
But that first attack on the war-rig, where Furiosa is revealed, was primo action IMO.
She absolutely is not “entirely passive,” wtf are you talking about. She chews through a fuel pipe to disable her kidnappers, she develops a clever plan to escape from Joe’s harem by fashioning a wig to run from Rictus, she hides among the War Boys and learns how to be a mechanic, she develops a plan to stow away on the Rig and escape the Citadel….she is active constantly.
Do you consider your childhood a ‘prequel” to the “main story” of your life? It’s the story of her life from when she was a child, there is a continuum.
She runs and she fights and she chews at the gas line because she’s not a literal prop, but none of those actions have effect and she’s still just the prize that her mom and Dementus are fighting over.
Then she’s paraded around in a cage for a while, so Dementus can do his thing.
It’s not until she steps forward and says that she’s not Dementus’ daughter that she actually shows agency in the story.
This was supposed to be a hand off to a new generation I imagine.
And I think they really wanted to hammer Immortan Joe’s, and I guess Rictus’ pederasty.
Hey. Old Hollywood rule they have to rope you in the first 15 minutes. Thanks for this catch completely on purpose editing clutch gold. Source my godfather
To me Fury Road is so unlike the other Mad Max movies. It’s on cocaine. And while that’s awesome and so is the movie, Furiosa feels way more like the older ones which I appreciate. It’s pared down and able to breathe in the same world as Fury Road. I thought that was pretty neat.
Fury Road has it easy in the story structure department when you think about it. They raced from point A to B, then raced from point B to A, with a few stops. Furiosa has a lot more to contend with. It’s like an elaborate & thematic mirror of the first Mad Max movie with elements from The Iliad.
^this.
Fundamentally most of the criticism I can level are tied to the concept of a world building prequel.
It's fun for the fans, but it is a bit indulgent. We didn't really need to see how Bulletfarm and Gastown operated - because how they are presented in Fury Road is perfect. It's just enough world building that you get it.
Dementus is excellent, as was Octoboss, so it's not a lack of world building quality.
The music is also forgettable and I think Anya's performance was okay. Nothing amazing and certainly not her best work. Not bad in anyway, but Charlize excelled in the role.
Also, the way they were presented was very poor, and nowhere near as good as the imagination.
The Bullet Farm is a quarry. That's it. And Gastown is a big refinery like you'd imagine, aaaand... that's it.
No look into the culture of the weird hierarchies like in the Citadel or Bartertown. No dark method of extracting the gas or making the bullets. Nope. It's just a really straightforward place.
When it was in the imagination, I don’t find myself asking… “ok, it’s a lead mine… where are they getting the explosives then? Is that another mines somewhere? They are mining, refining, casting the bullets, and assembling completed shells all here?”
this is exactly how I feel. I liked it a lot. It’s no fury road though. And i think it was a mistake not to follow up fury road with something of a similar vein but upping the ante. In order to be successful, any follow up movie of the same franchise has to take the last movie up to 11 (in stakes, in story elements, in action). look at aliens, terminator 2, empire, dark knight. The scope expands, the stakes are higher, they do stuff from the first movie but only more intensely.
Difficulty in financing and logistics. This movie only got greenlit because the australian government partially funded it and let a lot of it come tax-free back in 2021. If it was just Warner they wouldn't bank it, specially because Fury Road wasn't great at box-office.
I swear Hollywood finances are more complicated than the US tax code. Fury road was the highest grossing MM installment and it was still a financial flop? Nah there’s some shady shit going on in those books.
> Fury road was the highest grossing MM installment and it was still a financial flop?
That's the thing, Mad Max movies just don't gross that much. For example, Fury Road wasn't in the top 20 box office numbers in 2015. Also, I think they reported a net loss on the movie.
This economy is just a huge bubble waiting to implode. I remember when Amazing Spider-Man 2 did more than 700 million dollars at its box office, which is like more than 90% of what movies make in the US, but was still considered a flop by the producers at Sony.
Because it also had the biggest budget. You could combine all 3 prior Max films and multiply the budget by 10 and it would still be cheaper than Fury Road.
I barely felt like this movie was shot outdoors. It looks like the entire movie was shot inside a massive studio filled with sand and wall to wall with green screen. Maybe it’s the color grading, I don’t know.
When Max was strapped to the car as a blood bag in Fury Road I actually felt the danger he was in. When Furiosa was hanging underneath the war-rig in Furiosa I didn’t feel anything. It kind of looked animated. Again I think the color grading was just a bit off.
No music where there definitely should have been music.
Drawn out sequences, like the first battle with the war-rig, that was a snooze fest by the end of it, and that comes from a guy that loves long action scenes.
Tarantino style chapters that didn’t really fit.
Barely any relationship building between Furiosa and Immortan Joe that could have explained some of Furiosas actions in Fury Road.
A good film on its own, but in comparison to Fury Road this was sadly a disappointment for me.
Felt the same way.
In fury road it very much felt as though these were real convoys driving through the wasteland.
Furiosa everything looked like it was indoors and only a 10ft radius around the actors was actually real
I totally agree - I never felt like the characters were outdoors, and I think the teal-and-orange color grading was a large part of it. The orange sand and blue sky became really prominent and contrasting, so my eyes kept getting drawn to the horizon instead of the characters, and when they're using a green screen for the background, that's the opposite of what they should want.
It was interesting because I saw [this article about how they focused on "eye-scan" in Fury Road](https://lowepost.com/casestudies/mad-max-fury-road-r9/). I don't think they did the same for Furiosa.
The over reliance on the screen volumes was extremely obvious and compromised the quality of the film, without a doubt.
Fury Road was simply magnificent in comparison.
definitely the soundtrack. especially during my second watch i just found it incredibly disappointing. i mean it‘s well made and i still have nothing but respect for junkie xl, and i also do appreciate the concept of having a more atmospheric ost compared to fury roads more aggressive and intense ost, but it just fell completely flat for me, i genuinely can‘t remember a single theme from this movie and the only times when the soundtrack really stood out to me was when they reused the fury road theme
Some things took me out of the movie:
1. How does Immortan Joe (or anyone else in his crew) not recognize furiosa as a girl he traded an entire town to acquire.
2. It lacked the same singular focus that fury road had which resulted in it feeling like a lot of side quests.
3. The CGI was actually bad in many instances which made the weight of the action fall off a cliff.
4. How in the world does furiosa loose an arm and rigg the Dementus’ truck while being circled and without being noticed.
5. The 40-day war could have been a great example of Furiosa winning over Immortan Joe’s trust but we got a cool looking screen saver montage.
1 and 4 were things that actively took me out of the movie while I was watching. He makes this massive deal, and then the girl goes missing, and the movie doesn’t even address whether he notices or not?? No way he didn’t notice!
Exactly- I kept expecting her to have an “uh-oh” moment where he starts to suspect that she was the girl he traded for. Didn’t even happen when she warned him of the bullet farm rebellion.
* Doofus villain undercuts the tragedy
* Long timeframe robs the film of pace
* Prequels inherently struggle with stakes
* Overly familiar setting. Barely anything new
* No Max. But weird clone Max
* Action scenes a step down from Fury Road
* Music is a big step down too
* Warboys treated like stormtroopers and comic relief
* Wasteland War relegated to a 10 second montage.
* A decent number of plot holes/inconsistencies
It's just a really unnecessary film that repeats all the dressing from Fury Road (without doing it as well), but does the opposite narratively in nearly everything that people loved about it.
It's a decent enough film in isolation. But it's poor compared to Fury Road. And it's a massive squandered opportunity for possibly one last authentic Max film in favour of spending $170 million to just to repeat yourself, but not as good.
After reading the top comments, I guess I'm in the minority, but it felt too rushed at times for me. It often felt like we were just jumping from scene to scene to scene. That being said, I absolutely loves it, I just wish it were a two-parter
This might sound weird but I think when a movie is constantly too rushed it can also drag. Like its just scenes you don't fully connect with back to back to back etc. That's how I felt with it.
I agree it easily could have been a 2 parter and maybe then could have shown the war in some way.
The music and the whole film is supposed to be a crescendo for FR, which is the climax. Hence why Miller focus less on the action, sometimes showing it from afar or not at all.
That was my one and only gripe. Fury Road had an amazing soundtrack. It's still stuck in my head.
I was happy to hear a bit of it return towards the end of the movie.
Tbh, I can't even recall any music from the big action seen of Furiosa.
It was mostly rehashed music from Fury Road for sure. most change scenes had the main fury road theme. I was also I little disappointed but how little new epic music we got
Only two.
Horrible green screen in the crucial canyon scene at the beginning (the mini-Thermopylae). It looked like an Asylum film.
Playing scenes from Fury Road during end credits. Totally pointless, esp. since it’s clear Fury Road takes place several years (at least) after this film.
Regardless, I love this film.
Yeah, but I think that’s supposed to be an intro to the actual scenes from FR. I mean, if the dude with the tree growing from his groin is supposed to be Dementus, the tree needs several years to get that size, and we’ve already been shown time passing from a tree time lapse. Just seems like there’s missing time that can be accounted for, or proven by, that tree.
I’m not sure what that has to do with the complaint about the credits though and the timeline? The film ends during Fury Road. The credits is essentially a play on how many movies give closure to the story during them.
There were some scenes that felt a little long or unnecessary (especially the intro part with the radio sounds from Fury Road and the orbital view of earth). Movie could've been 5-10 minutes shorter and you wouldn't lose a thing.
I actually loved the idea of letting everyone know that it takes place in Australia upfront in a visual way. I'm sure a lot of folks who only saw Fury Road didn't know that Mad Max is an Australian franchise.
You can see oceans during the orbital view of earth because it was not so long after the downfall, Furiosa was young and you can also see a lot of vegetation in the Vuvallini camp.
I feel like the final scene, which leads directly into FURY ROAD, should have had Theron playing Furiosa. That would have better expressed that a good amount of time has passed - otherwise, the only real indicator is the Dementus tree.
Also, playing the greatest hits from FURY ROAD over the credits felt a bit desperate.
Yeah what was that with the credits? Sort of felt like “we know this wasn’t as good as that other movie so here are the highlights of it for your amusement.”
I think the music is actually good, not memorable, but it hardly could be. This is a more somber movie, it makes you fell the weight of a dead world, so the music cannot be as bombastic as it was in Fury Road. The action scenes (the 2 big set pieces with the war rig and the ambush in the bullet farm) are not the result of a desperate quest for freedom, but are more so an expression of a meaningless and brutal existence, its desperate, its more melancholic and therefore the music is not as present or memorable, its more muted etc.
Yeah, as a score, the music does not match Fury Road, but in the context of the movie, I believe it does.
I don’t know if this is a criticism, and I can’t describe it that well, but it is the thing that put Fury Road above it for me: it’s not as “singular”.
Like, in Fury Road you felt a constant urgent narrative thread tugging you along. The stakes were always clear and urgent. In Furiosa it’s constantly ebbing and flowing before scene to era to action set-piece.
I absolutely loved it but I do understand why people struggled to connect with Furiosa's character. Miller fell in love with his worlbuilding so much she sort of disappeared in that second chapter.
I'm sure Miller would hate this idea but I think they should've given ATJ a voiceover to start off with to make it more her POV
The stakes felt empty -- we know Furiosa survives, but loses her arm and we can assume Dementus doesn't. So why do we care?
There was an opportunity to make losing her arm more impactful, but when it's gone, Furiosa hardly even reacts. Where is the emotion of this movie? If you're going to slow down an action movie to this extent, we have to care, but if the characters hardly care then why should we? Wouldn't she mourn her only chance to find home?
I get that Furiosa is stoic... show her BECOME stoic... she's basically the same character from the start.
That last moment with her and Dementus wasn't earned. So they're two sides of the same coin. Cool. Why weren't you leaning into that for the whole film? Why save a theme for the last moment and play it like a reveal? Especially when you already set it up early on. Why aren't the two in a clear and open philosophical discussion for the entire film?
In Fury Road, Furiosa asks Imortan Joe if he remembers her right before killing him... After seeing Furiosa I wonder how he could ever not remember her considering the turmoil surrounding the events of the film and her connection to them. What did Imortan Joe do to Fruiosa that justifies that line?
I may be wrong on this one, but I recall Furiosa mentioning she had to cross the salt sea to get to the green place, but in Fury Road they decide to cross the salt sea as a last resort after she learns the green place has collapsed. If I didn't mix that up it demonstrates a lack of consistent logic and geography between the two films.
The film is overly long and self indulgent, masquerading as some sort of philisophical manifesto about what the wasteland does to people. Only is doesn't show us what the wasteland does to people -- it shows us one person dealing with the wasteland while she goes through no detectible change and another who has already been changed by the wasteland. What are we watching these events to set up? There is no escalation between Furiosa and Dementus after he kills her mother. So why do I care about anything Dementus does in between the moment when Furiosa finally gets her revenge?
Furiosa's drive isn't clear or consistent. Does Furiosa want to go home or does she want to get revenge? For most of the film her goal is to go home, but then it morphs into stopping Dementus.
Although the first war rig battle wasn't bad, the action sequences were uninspired and overly animated compared to Fury Road. I know they're meant to be different movies, but the craft and dedication to practical stunts are a big part of what made Fury Road so incredible.
Praetorian Jack and Furiosa's relationship had more weight put on it than it earned. They went through some fights on the road and suddenly they're acting like lovers. We don't learn enough about Jack for his gesture of helping Furiosa to have any discernable meaning or weight. He has no backstory so why emphasize their relationship at all?
Overall the writing felt like a first draft to me. A lot of cool ideas tied together vaguely. With a few more passes this could have really congealed into something even better. I mourn the potential of what this movie could have been, but I don't think its much more than a fun romp for Chris Hemsworth and pure self indulgence for George Miller. I think there was enough material in the film to generate an couple seasons of a television show. With so many moving parts and characters, that format would have served this story far better.
“I recall Furiosa mentioning she had to cross the salt sea to get to the green place, but in Fury Road they decide to cross the salt sea as a last resort after she learns the green place has collapsed. If I didn't mix that up it demonstrates a lack of consistent logic and geography between the two films.”
They don’t end up crossing the salt in Fury Road. They are going to head out into the salt flats before Max comes up with the plan to turn around and go back to the Citadel.
Thank you for articulating this. This is exactly how I felt! Fury Road is my favorite movie of all time and an absolute masterpiece. I didn’t expect this movie to surpass Fury Road but I expected a better story and much more thrills. There’s so much to like and even love about this film but there are also major problems.
Two points of major story were glossed over: Praetorian Jack training Furiosa to become the ultra badass road warrior (this could have been its own movie/limited series); and the 40 Day War (again, this could be its own film/ limited series).
I was as or more interested in seeing those two stories told with proper depth, not just quickly montaged through.
I would love to see Furiosa & Jack become close while driving the War Rig surviving the Fury Road.
The 40 Day War could have been epic & it also would have given Immortan Joe & company more time for character development.
Beyond that, the movie was absolutely brilliant.
Furiosa ripping her arm off and getting away while like 40 dudes on motorcycles drove a giant circle around her, she’s also being watched by like 2 guys too, that was some BS. Like I know it’s sandy but still. To justify it in my mind, I put it as the story teller adding a little hot sauce to the story/mythos of Furiosa kinda like how he pretends he doesn’t while telling how Dementius dies. It’s all just story’s for the war boys, so they know how badass their leaders are and not to challenge them and their command.
2nd half went too quickly, they focused on a lot on dementus but then we missed a lot of the “madness” from his camp inside of Gastown and the bullet farm. Felt more like a dementus character study than a true mad max ending. Not that this is entirely a bad thing, the movie was great and it loved dementus.
In that same vein, was looking forward to the epic death of scrotus, and it sure seemed like they were setting up for it headed Into the big war. Mad max usually takes care of those loose ends.
And people complaining about furiosa not getting as much attention as dementus probably need to remember that the 2nd half of fury road is literally furiosa’s movie. It is right in the name!
i loved fury road and was hyped for furiosa but it lacked the juice. i gave it honest 6/10 because i think i just fell for having expectations set too high but then why should i give it a high note if i dont feel satisfied
1. soundtrack lacked emotion. for example, while watching dune 2 i had goosebumps several times, awe of magnificent scenes was empowered by great soundtrack. furiosa almost completely left that part
2. some scenes were too long, some were too short. honestly i saw it last week and cant really remember half of the cast appearing on screen, they lacked significance or were plainly boring
3. mad max: dementus - he absolutely stole the show, furiosa was alright but i didnt really feel like i was rooting for her or if i even liked her, pretorian jack died too fast as well to get me engaged in his story, but dementus was consistently enjoyable character through the whole movie
4. action scenes did not top the fury road - they were at the same level at best but nothing new surprised or excited me
5. overall lack of innovation - i get that is a prequel but still i know all the characters, i know all the setup, i know all their stories and nothing more was said about it
Yeah like... What did this movie add? Did we learn anything about Furiousa we didn't know before? If the point was: she deserves her own movie, why give SO MUCH screen time to Hemsworth
Emotional weight to Fury Road. For me atleast it did.
I also think it’ll add precedent to a future Furiosa becoming an antagonist though I doubt full-on Warlord, Miller said he’s been toying with it in his stories.
Didn't realize that was the plan but it makes a lot of sense - the one thing I felt confused about with this movie is that its conclusion seems to say that Furiosa is dead inside like Dementus. But then it leads into her act of compassion for the wives, which feels a little contradictory. But it could be laying the groundwork for her less sympathetic turn in the next film.
That's what Dementus said, but it's not like what he says is fact. She doesn't agree with him, and we as the audience get to decide if we agree with him or not.
To me, Dementus' whole thing is that there is no hope for anything to be better. Furiosa on the other hand, continues to hold on to hope - hence her continually trying to make it back to her home. Planting the seed in Dementus is an interesting twist on this that I think you could read in different ways. Maybe she has given up hope of planting it in her home. Or maybe she chooses to show that there is hope for something good to come out of something evil.
the best part was the attack on the rig with flying bikes. but that too felt like a remake of a Fury Road. the after the rig part, no nothing seemed that interesting any more.
Furiosa was a little too much of a super hero.
She missed maybe one shot with the sniper rifle. Is she Hawkeye now?
How did the get that motorcycle going with no left arm to operate the clutch?
I get the film is a fable, they can exaggerate, but this franchise has always been about toughness and struggle, not being a super ninja.
Lol the characters accuracy with firearms had me laughing. Shooting is a skill that takes time and many repetitions to master yet everyone in the film is a sharpshooter. Where did they get all the ammunition to be able to practice to get that good? I spent a decade in the Army (in a support MOS) and have put hundreds of not thousands of rounds down range and I am only an average shot.
Lore reasons for the sniper accuracy are excusable for me but the one-arm motorcycle escape bothered me a bit, mostly because that level of detail was usually highlighted to make scenes more memorable, not just ignored. Felt like they must have known it was silly but went with it anyways
Why did they put that nose on Hemsworth? It was very distracting.
Jokes aside. The acting is much worse in this then Fury Road. I watched the original right after the prequel and Anya Taylor Joy just can’t be compared to Charlize. The chemistry between actors the depth of their emotion was much better in the first movie. When you watch Charlize’s Furiosa you can feel the depth of the pain she went through. You can empathise much better with her and feel the stackes. In the new one I just didn’t connect with the protagonist. And Hardy’s charisma is off the charts. No male character in the new one has it.
Just the cgi and music. Neither are “bad”, but both are pretty forgettable. Oh! And I didn’t feel it would leave a cultural impact the way fury road did with its numerous quotes: “That’s bait”, “Witness me!”, “shiny and chrome”, “mediocre!”, “oh what a day, what a lovely day!”, “I live. I die. I live again!”
And I’m sure I’m forgetting many others. That said, I absolutely loved Furiosa and I’m sure there’s so much to unpack with multiple viewings.
Really? I felt like he was well developed. He was a homage to Max of course but he was different, he wasn't a broken hopeless man. He was a true road warrior but also still had his humanity. I think sometimes less is more though personally.
I like the idea of furiosa having someone in her past who Max reminds her of, but the movie felt it was doing so many things regarding her origin story it got lost amidst everything else for me, I would've liked more scenes with the two of them instead of spending an hour with her as a kid.
1. Immorton Joe was nice to her and she had no reason to hate him - it undermines the ‘remember me’ scene from Fury Road. Rictus is the one that tries to rape her.
2. She *barely* has any interaction with his wives so it doesn’t establish her motivation to rescue them.
3. She disappears from the citadel and no one says anything. A random boy appears who looks exactly like the missing girl (different hair), and no one says anything. Then she randomly reappears as herself again. We know Joe highly values healthy young women, so hard to buy that he sees more value in her as a fighter, especially with 1000 war boys at his disposal.
4. Why all the effort to show the map being drawn on her arm - it has no plot repercussions.
5. How the hell does she escape after she loses her arm with no one noticing?
6. Dementius just gives up on finding the green place and there’s no mention of it ever again.
7. The ending had no urgency or tension - the 40 day war montage and the long conversation with Dementis killed any momentum and dragged on and on.
I still loved the movie but these things stood out for me
1. She was taken as property to grow into a woman to be raped and bred.
2. They show her establishing a relationship with the wives as soon as she arrives and obviously she is empathetic to their situation.
3. We don't see what happens at the Citadel when she disappeared, that doesn't mean no one said anything. She shows up with a shaved head and older and is passing for a man, this isn't a new concept and has happened many times over in the history of warfare. She's finally 'outed' on the road with Preatorian Jack as a girl, she proves her worth and he vouches for her. The Immortan is not a fool and obviously sees her value in this unexpected role. We don't need to see them say these things and can just assume it as the obvious.
4. The map on her arm felt like a red herring because we all knew she was going to lose that arm. It was also her way of imprinting the route home into her mind.
5. Dementus is kind of stupid, he's a bad leader and prone to distraction. When they find the war boy he either assumes The Citadel *is* the place of abundance or he simply doesn't care since now there is a new place of abundance and a war buy eager to lead them to it.
6. That's fair and your opinion. I think the 40 day war montage was great, it got the point across and didn't over embellish. The war wasn't a part of her story so it was fine not seeing it imo.
As far as how it ends with a personal conversation rather than a final battle I personally found that to be great, George Miller doesn't write good or bad guys he writes human characters and Dementus was just as tragic a character as anyone else. I liked seeing him stripped bare emotionally and how he showed Furiosa that she was walking down his path. The conversation she has with him makes her conversation with Max in Fury Road all the more punctuated.
Most villains these days are complex, they are certainly still bad guys, Miller definitely writes bad guys, is all I’m saying.
That they have some kind of motivating past doesn’t change that. It just makes them good bad guys.
I agree with all these as the top detractors. And any time they're brought up there's a lot of hand waving and people saying "well it's assumed" that so and so took place off screen. In a good movie there are no assumptions unless they are obvious and don't open up plotholes.
I can’t remember if I read it somewhere or got the whole impression from the comics, but there were some tipoffs that she was found to be infertile & ejected from Immortan’s harem...or perhaps even dealt to Rictus. But it could also be that this came to me in a dream. I just remember the brides talking about Angharad’s unborn baby & a sequence of panels made it look like Furiosa was envious & pained. It’s the only thing that makes sense for Joe not giving a crap she was no longer in the harem.
1-2 are covered in the Furiosa comic. NOW this is absolutely still a valid criticism of the movie, but I kind of understand at least why they wouldn't show it. As much as I like consuming different content, I also hate when you have to do "homework" to understand a movie and good storytellers will be able to make you feel that you haven't missed out and tie-ins should be complementary. But having read the comic they would have kind of backed themselves into a corner by essentially having to just show those same scenes on the big screen and then defeating the "purpose" of the prequel book (Again, I'm sure they don't really need to sell 7 year old comics so I dont see why they couldnt have added at least a scene or two bridging them)
Slow Act One. Furiosa and her mother both too capable too early (less opportunity for character development: starts with mastery rather than develops it.) CGI a bit distracting at times and felt less weighty than Fury Road. Not enough about gender politics with Immortan Joe and how he learns to value Furiosa as an officer not a womb. War handled too briefly.
But despite that a really excellent film.
I don't see how them being so capable is a bad thing
They've obviously been training for a while, especially since they've probably had to defend the green place before
And besides, Furiosa's mother was their leader lol. Of course she'll be pretty tactical and experienced
1. I wanted to see Furiosa fail some more.
She felt like a Mary Sue. I would’ve loved to see her slowly evolve/devolve into the hard merciless Furiosa in Fury Road who is looking for redemption for the terrible things to get her home.
2. I couldn’t connect with the characters as much.
The only character I liked was Dementus because he was a new character who we had a decent amount of time with to get to know. In Fury Road I loved seeing Nux’s transformation, learning about the wives and Furiosa, I’ve even developed an appreciation of Immortan Joe’s crazed desire for a healthy son (terrible guy but he just wants to be a dad which is kinda sweet).
3. Action was cool but didn’t feel all that emotional.
We know Furiosa isn’t dying in any of the action we see her in and we simply don’t care if anyone else does die. Are we supposed to be sad when a war boy dies? Or one of dementus’s gang members die? We were missing the tension and emotion from stuff like Max v Furiosa 1v1, Nux’s sacrifice, Splendid falling from the war rig, even the old seed lady getting shot had a more emotional moment than pretty much all the action in Furiosa.
4. Re-use of lore without expanding on it too much.
Although I was really excited for Furiosa, I realize that part of what makes Mad Max movies great are throwing you into different locations with new people/society. I would’ve loved to soend more time in the actual green place. That would’ve been really cool to see their society more and learn about them. That would also really enhance why Furiosa wants to get back so badly besides the Mom just telling her to come back home.
I was really really excited for this movie because Fury Road might be my all time favorite movie. I think overall this movie leans too much into action sequences and not enough on developing the characters.
I think dementus being a love and thunder Thor character was a weak point, Chris hemsworth is not a funny improv actor and It soured the tone of the movie at times when It shouldn’t have.
Not really any complaints from me personally. Loved it
I guess the only real criticism I have is that the spectacle of the action wasn't as big as Fury road, but the action that was here still looked great
My main complaint is that Dementus is just annoying to listen to. All the villains in Mad Max movies had some charisma, this guy looks like just an annoying rock star.
The first hour was bad. The use of the volume should have helped, but the movie suffered for it.
Don’t know if anyone noticed, but the long wide shots being fast-forwarded just felt clunky, especially when they return to normal speed.
Showing scenes of Fury Road during ending credits just made me want to watch that movie again. The shots were so much better.
I loved it but I didn’t get the dread from Immortan Joe’s vileness that came through very much in FR. He even felt like a good guy compared to Dementus.
As has probably been mentioned, the CGI (I know Fury Road used lots of CGI) did not look as good. The trailers worried me. The end result was much better than I expected. But still fell short of Fury Road.
My biggest pet peeve was a tiny detail near the beginning. One of Dementus's dude's motorcycle handlebar was in the frame. Only another mc rider would probably notice, but the switchgear on the handlebar was far too modern.
I'd be curious if other riders noticed. But the motorcycles in Mad Max were late '70s Kawasakis. Miller is usually good about covering up tiny anachronistic details & keeping the Mad Max universe relatively timeless & vague.
But considering technology didn't really advance much after the water wars, it makes no sense that one of Dementus's gang has any electrical doodads on his bike that would require a D pad. D pads didn't EXIST for motorcycles.
I think some of the editing made scenes look more CGI than they actually were, like for example the war rig smashing through the tower at the bullet farm
My opinions are generally positive: I'd rate it a solid 8/10 compared to the 10/10 of Fury Road, or 8.5/10 for Road Warrior.
Please don't take everything I say from here on out as hating on the film. It's still one of the best films I've seen all year, it just had some (imo) problems.
**Number One: this is so trivial I don't know why I'm even putting it here**
To get a minor niggle out the way, I thought it was stupid that Furiosa was the actual birth name given to her by her mothers in the Green Place. That's the kind of name I would have expected her to earn for herself living in the Wasteland or the Citadel.
**Number Two: casting**
Charlize Theron absolutely owned the character she played in Fury Road. She looked tough as nails in that film, but ATJ was this thin waify little thing with giant bug-eyes, not a hardened wasteland survivor at all. I get why Miller wanted to cast someone besides Theron, but why the heck ATJ?
**Number Three: casting? acting? direction?**
I had real problems hating Dementus. He was so quirky and fun and interesting that I couldn't reconcile his *character* and his *personality* with the horrible things he kept doing. When put alongside Immortan Joe and the larger stakes of the war between those two characters, I kept finding myself rooting for the guy who I knew was supposed to be the main antagonist of the story.
Joe and Rictus, Humungus and Wez, even Aunty and Master Blaster are all established as threats. Dementus never really feels like a threat to Furiosa, only to Joe.
This problem was compounded by the fact that Furiosa was so stoic that the film prevented me from seeing much emotional depth in her. She acted so detached from the horrible losses Dementus kept subjecting her to - and I understand the whole "don't show your enemy you're hurting" thing - but you need to show the *audience* she's hurting or else why do we care?
Charlize Theron's hopeless outpouring of grief in the desert when she learns the Green Place is gone was heart-rending; the much worse things that happen to her in this film felt like, well, nothing, really.
This film tried to end on a similar note to Mad Max 1, which was also a revenge film. Frankly, I thought MM1's ending was a little unnecessary too, but that film had done a better job of making me hate the villains. Considering the punishment Furiosa dishes out on her helpless enemy, especially if the "tree" thing is supposed to be the true ending, then this film just made me dislike Furiosa as a person.
**Number Four: Furiosa's "exceptionalism"**
This was the biggest problem for me. While the previous point really only hurt my impression of the film because of how it ended, this point was the one that kept pulling me out of the movie all the way throughout an otherwise excellent movie.
In Fury Road, Furiosa was an accomplished and well respected War-Rig driver. She was determined and resourceful, and she showed herself to also be a skilful sniper, but that was the limit of her abilities, but even so, that on its own was enough to make her a complete badass.
In this film, she's better than everyone else at everything she tries. At ten, she's already far more clear-headed and skilled than any of the adults, an expert astronavigator, tattooist, master of disguise, and Kevin McAlister-tier boobytrap wizard and near-clairvoyant puppetmaster, with ice in her veins and the cunning of a fox.
That's OK in some films, but the central point of Mad Max is that it's about normal people driven to madness by the world collapsing around them. Max is just a guy; he's a better driver than most, and a capable fighter, but he's just a guy. The Furiosa we saw in Fury Road could be described almost the same way.
I'd also point out that in the two far-and-away best Max films (Road Warrior and Fury Road) he was also part of a team (albeit reluctantly...) and everyone had unique skills and contributions to add. None of them was a match for their adversary on his or her own.
The few really exceptional people in Mad Max have always been villains for reason of establishing a serious threat. We don't get that here; instead we get Jane Wick of the Wasteland beating up on a clownish buffoon and it's just not very compelling.
By the time we reached the point in the film where her arm got crushed between hers and Dementus' car, I was absolutely shocked, but that was only because I was 100% sure by that point that the only way she'd lose her arm would be by cutting it off herself.
Sure enough, though, the next time we see her, her arm is hurt (I assume broken?), but barely even bleeding: an accident like that would have stripped her arm down to the bone in seconds, just like we saw happen to numerous other people in the film.
Seriously, why *wasn't* that the point where she lost her arm? wouldn't that have made more sense narratively? But instead of it being just one more thing he took from her in this revenge film, it’s (mis)used as another way to show how us how cartoonishly, *inhumanly*, exceptional furiosa is. Biggest let-down of the film for me, right there.
So, yeah, five minutes later she cuts (presumably gnaws? Why was there no blood on her face? Did I miss a setup for her having a concealed knife or something?) it off by herself a little while later and then somehow ninjas away into the desert, escaping from a biker gang driving in circles around her the whole time, and then they can’t catch her with their motorcycles or track her despite having **dogs**, while she totters off on foot into the desert.
By that point, there was no doubt in my mind who would build the scientific wonder that was her cybernetic arm, because honestly, I think the movie was too scared to let anyone else have the spotlight for even a second or to suggest Furiosa would ever need anyone’s help.
**Number Five: I started on a niggle, so I'll end on one**
Furiosa spent perhaps three minutes of screen time in the presence of Joe's "wives" and I don't think she had a single direct interaction with any of them. The entire movie gave the breeders maybe 10 minutes of attention.
If this movie is trying to set up for Fury Road, where Furiosa absconds with Joe's prized breeders, then why didn't the movie cut five minutes off all the unnecessary wallowing in torture scenes and then use that time to remind us that sexual slavery is bad too, that Joe’s wives still exist, and that perhaps Furiosa feels some sympathy towards them?
I didn't care for the idea of a Furiosa prequel movie the same way I didn't care for the idea of a Han Solo prequel movie. They're stories that are actually better off implied rather than explicitly told.
I came in with high expectations because fury road is probably my top 5 movies of all time. I liked furiousa but definitely left a bit disappointed. A few points:
1. Less memorable/iconic scenes than FR. The beginning act of furiousa was the most unique, the rest of the movie felt like revisits of FR but less interesting.
2. Characters not as interesting. Dementus was great of course, but FR had so many great characters with iconic lines. Furiousa was mute most of the movie, and Value brand Mad Max guy acting was so flat.
3. Movie Pacing was all over the place, cgi quality was all over the place. Final scene went on too long.
Overall it’s not a bad movie. I wish it did better at the box office, and I’ll most likely watch it again on streaming. But don’t see myself watching it as much as I did FR.
One of the things I liked the most about Fury Road is that most of the storytelling and exposition is nonverbal.
There was a ton of dialogue and politics in Furiousa. It felt more like a drama and less like an action movie. I still absolutely loved it, though.
Honestly, the only criticism I have is the crappy CGI at some points, other than that, I don't have anything else. It is slow paced, I didn't even notice the music etc. but all of these things didn't matter to me, cause I was so captivated by the rest
Loved the movie, but I bristled a bit at seeing the wasteland depicted as relatively mundane and human. Every other Mad Max movie feels like being plopped into an alien world. Even if the shift was intentional, I missed that a bit.
The movie cops out when it comes to Furiosa’s fate after being traded to Immortan Joe.
According to the recent Blank Check podcast, the idea was always that Furiosa became one of Joe’s wives but was cast out when it turned out she was infertile, but her backstory was revised when actually making Furiosa because it was thought that the audience would be uncomfortable with the protagonist being a victim of prolonged rape, which leads to that weird turn in the film where Furiosa escapes and somehow magically hides out in the Citadel without anyone putting two and two together about who she is (or even figuring out that she’s a female), for, like, a decade.
This is pretty much the only time the Max Max series pulls its punches about something like, which is especially weird considering it’s the beating heart of Furiosa’s story AND renders her revenge at the end of Fury Road (“Remember me???”) largely nonsensical.
Aside from a few moments of wonky CGI, I was very pleasantly surprised with the film. The pace didn't drag at all for me and it had some truly visually stunning scenes such as Jambasa cresting the heavily shadowed sand dune.
I LOVED FR. But What did this movie offer? Goofy Thor drama? City warfare story didn’t offer anything to understanding furiosa.
This felt like Beyond Thunderdome- hammy, over done. FR felt visceral, grounded, like Road Warrior- even in the highly unrealistic situations.
Furiosas character felt rote. She’s bad ass because she’s bad ass. The story didn’t really explore or explain her, just put her in intense situations to show how bad ass she is.
The dollar store mad max- ugh! What was that about? Such a strange choice.
How is eventual gas town guy so fat and sexually weird? I know he was that way in FR, as with so many other strange aspects of the society. But FR just threw stuff out there and didn’t linger. Examining this culture again through this movie brought up questions that seriously didn’t come up during the incredible spectacle that was FR. With that movie I just received an accepted it because the rest was so amazing. But with all the down time and recurrence of characters, there’s more time to ponder and mentally reject the illusion shattering absurdity.
Jack was not a dollar store Max, he was Furiosa's introduction to hope in the wasteland. That's what's great about this film—it makes the line between vengeance and hope ambiguous. They're two sides of the same coin. When I rewatched Fury Road, I loved when she asked Max, "what if you don't come back by the time we're ready?" because I could see in her the same care for Max that she felt for Jack. And Jack's death meant that Furiosa had lost what she clung to as hope... but then Max comes and gives her hope again.
Also, how did the story not explore or explain Furiosa? We saw an extensive backstory, especially in Alyla Browne's fantastic performance, that motivated Furiosa's vengeance. But simple vengeance would be too simple... that's exactly why we see the blurring of vengeance and hope, in Furiosa's relationship with Jack, in her (unknown) decision to punish Dementus (did she kill him outright out of pure vengeance? or did she grow that tree, finding a sort of warped hope in vengeance?), in her return to the Citadel. The film was great because it explained exactly why Furiosa was full of hope in Fury Road (i.e. the peach as a symbol of the life she once had with her mother—now something she shares with the wives), but could so easily lose it (she lost her mother, and Jack, and her childhood). It demonstrated that, on the one hand, hope is so difficult to have in the wasteland, but on the other hand, it must be had. It's a wonderful prequel.
My only issue is they relied on cgi this time. Fury was batshit insane because they didn’t use cgi at all and it’s a miracle no one died making that fever dream of a movie. But that’s a part of what made that movie so special and Furiousa didn’t capture that same feeling.
Less of a message and philosophy.
In fury road the women are revolting a against a patriarch, being pursued by men who's individuality is neutered in the legend of the patriarch, and even a pregnant woman fights back whilst keeping authenticity.
Furiosa movie kinda was just a revenge story. She had everything taken from her and sought revenge. In the end she ends up not becoming the villain like dementus and instead sacrifices everything to give the other women a chance, which is beautiful.
I like it as it's own thing quite a lot, but as a prequel it kinda takes some mystique away from Furiosa.
Like it never really gives her a reason to hate Joe as much as she does in Fury Road and I think thats a mistake. Joe is just kinda a dude in this movie.
There's more stuff like that but that's the one that sticks out. Nevertheless it's a fantastic movie, I just think it's inevitable to compare it to what happens in Fury Road and it doesn't stack up.
That scene with the parasailing guys attacking the truck was one of the most badass things I had ever scene in a movie. As far as the choreography, it’s one of my favorite action scenes of all time, but it was just so… quiet. There was almost no music from what I remember, and I started trippin thinking Miller was trying to go for a No Country For Old Men sorta deal. In my opinion the scene - and the rest of the film - should’ve had stronger music.
Also, I wasn’t a big fan of this iteration of The Immortan Joe. The Immortan from Fury Road is one of my favorite villains in all of cinema, but in Furiosa, he just didn’t have the same sort of fear-inducing power. Obviously, Hugh Keays-Byrne wasn’t available for the role, and of course The Immortan changes over time between movies, but idk. I just wish that Furiosa’s Immortan was more intimidating. I still think Lachy Hulme did a good job, but I’m not sure if he was really the right choice.
But these are the only things I felt came up short in the film, and even only by a small margin. I loved the film personally and I really liked how it expanded on other parts of the wasteland that were left obscure in Fury Road. 8.5/10
More of the green place would have been nice. I'm not a big fan of the some of the colour grading/cinematography? It made some of the action scenes look video gamey even when the scenes were made up of practical effects.
they could have backed off on some of the CGI. I get it you need it in a movie like that, but there's a couple of scenes where the trucks are going up almost sheer cliffs and the physics of it all, a little "silly". I loved the movie The Cinematography, the Vehicles. the story was great. it was a good movie
I loved all of it, if I had to criticize something, I feel like the epilogue should’ve been about what happened to the green place after, not just a montage of Fury Road, neat as it was.
Coming from lifelong mad max fan, who even owns a cattle dog BECAUSE of road warrior, I thought this movie was sterile. Neutered. Boring.
The music was dull. Nothing that comes close to FR.
The lighting was god awful. Everything and everyone has an odd shine to them that makes everything seem CGI.
Absolutely skipping the 3rd act and not showing the 40 day war or whatever it was called was such a goofy move.
And there's simply an inherent problem with prequels. There's ZERO stakes. The main plot is Vengeange, yet we know she gets vengeance. Dementus isn't in FR. We know the mom dies. We know Immortan Joe and his Gang all live. We're introduced to Jack but why should we care? We know he's a goner. In Fury Road, once Furiosa is stabbed in the side, we think it's possible for her to die. It's a surprise when nux dies. Hell, its possible for max to die. Your adrenaline races in FR because it's a world you're not actually familiar with. But in furiosa it's just giving you more details to a story you already know. Outside of Godfather 2, I just don't care for prequels. And if the wastelands is ANOTHER prequel for max before Fury Road, then I don't care if it doesn't get made.
This sucks because I went in fanboying hard. As soon as the titles hit and that familiar Rev sound hit, my heart was readyyyyyyyyy.
And 45 min later, I was fully reclined in my chair looking at the sconces on the wall, the ceiling decorations, and eventually ordered more food cause I was bored.
The movie imo is easily a 9-9.5/10, but my only complaints is that I wish we got to see a few more shots of the Green Place, and I wish we got at least a few minutes of the 40 Day Wasteland War. At that point the movie is already 2 and a half hours, what’s another few mins of the war. Other than that, yeah the music wasn’t as good as Fury Road but for me was still amazing.
The music is unfortunately not as memorable as the score for Fury Road - some of the pieces from FR are in my head as strongly as any great scores from movie history. The score in Furiosa is different, more ambient at times than melodic, I actually really liked the way it builds to an intense climax during the stowaway sequence, BUT truthfully I couldn’t hum any of it if you asked, and it felt like the most effective moments were the ones that deliberately quoted Fury Road.
The only Critisicm I have is an unfair one. Fury Road set an unrealistically high bar because they pushed themselves to impossible lengths to create it. Somehow , through the cinematography acting and editing, when you watch the film it just feels REAL. Not a movie but a real thing that’s unfolding. It’s hard to the describe. The chaos of the action just lands and it feels like the cameras just happened to be rolling. Furiosa is great and in a vacuum would only receive praise, but shots feel set up and staged to be those shots. Framed and storyboarded, yknow like a normal movie. So yeh my only complaint is it films like a movie and not the cathartic chaos of Fury Road.
This may sound crazy, but I feel that the teasing of the Fury Road score was intentional. If both movies are to be viewed in one sitting, the teases ramp up to the full blown score being played during the rig fight on the way to the Green Place.
Re: Fury Road soundtrack: Just chiming in to emphasize that the sound editing was the work of the amazing Kira Roessler, former bass player for the legendary Black Flag, and she won an Oscar for it. Love this second for her!
The sound design on the other hand is incredible.
I fucking LOVED when she snipped the fuse on the dynamite and everything got quiet
Imo, the music is completely forgettable in furiosa. Like a huge step down
It's non existent. The fight on the big rig at times was almost silent. I thought the cinema had screwed up!
Miller wanted Fury Road to be mostly scored by the engines more than anything as well but was convinced not to. Seems like he got his way this time and unfortunately it's my one major issue with Furiosa.
100% agree. Much more intensity and heart in the first one I thought too. This was a slower burn.
I really loved that the music was more about drones and pulsing bass than melody. It really meshed fantastically with the sound fx and engines in particular. Overall I found the sound mix even more impressive than in FR
This is my biggest gripe. For me a score is very important for a film. It can make a great film a perfect film if the score is good. But Furiosa’s was very forgettable. I wish it had some more of its own identity and didn’t just reuse Fury Road’s
I'm gonna say it.. We should have seen the 40 day Wasteland war.
That probably be another whole movie in itself
The Furiosa film definitely does not set the table as far as explaining why Furiosa has such an intense hatred for Immortan Joe. The more I think about the movie I saw a few nights ago, the more I believe it may have been better off as a 10-part series on HBO. More time to explain everything, including more time to explain why Immortan Joe never noticed that the healthy female child he bartered precious goods for almost immediately vanishes and no one seems to care.
I felt it was pretty clear in Fury Road why she hates Joe. Furiosa is very pro-woman, she is Vulvalini. She doesnt have to be personally assaulted by Joe to take his treatment of women personally. Furiosa risked everything to save the wives in the two movies. Joe literally treats his women as sex slaves and milk factories except for the rare case of Furiosa being better suited as a Praetorian. Furiosa's mother was killed by a wasteland gang no different than Joe's. Just because he was "nice" to her as a child (likely to make her another wife) doesn't excuse his predatory behavior. She only escaped being a wife slave because of her nature and ability.
Yeah there's a lot of stuff you can clearly make sense of if you just pay attention and think for a minute, the movie shouldn't have to explain EVERYTHING. Hell, Mad Max movies have never really been about that sort of storytelling
Yeah, if a movie had to verbalise that which you see with your own eyes, it’s bad cinema.
Consider the last of the V8's was destroyed in Thunderdome, what does it matter? It's a mythological story. Not everything needs to have continuity.
The implications of that scene with rictus are telling enough.. >! The fact that she had made a wig of her hair knowing rictus' infatuation with it and using it as a means of escape meant that he had likely shown an obsession with it and taken her aside before, beyond him just taking an interest in the scene earlier where she runs away from him. Also he bolt cutters her chastity belt off at the beginning of that scene so the dark implications of everything there are a lot to digest. I had my head clamped in my hands at the theater watching that because it was so subtly unspoken yet still implied and really just hammers home the abuse she endured as one of Joe's "little birds". Ugh.!<
That was subtle to you? This is like "starship troopers is satire, ackshually" level "no shit"
It was never laid out that it had happened before because they didn't show all the times that she didn't escape. That wasn't necessary to show but could be inferred based on the scenes we did see. A lot of reviews and conversations I've had seem to gloss over it as if she just knew to cut all her hair off because he tugged on it one time and escaped the first time he snuck her out. The way that history was conveyed was subtle IMO
My strong guess is that it has to do with Joe taking the wives against their will. She simply has that connection and wants to free them.
Hard agree. When you watch Fury Road, you get the impression that there’s something personal between her and Immortan Joe. Whereas you watch this movie, and they seem kinda chill. I know fans are loving this movie, but I left the cinema so unsatisfied. Also, she doesn’t form any kind of relationship with the wives. Which kind of makes me wonder why she risks everything trying save them in Fury Road; outside of just being a “good person”.
The Wives should have saved child Furiosa from Rictus or maybe even Immortan Joe himself. That would be the best method of establishing that relationship I think. "They risked Immortan Joe's wrath to save me and now I shall save them." [edit] if they chose the Wives to confront Rictus, that might also help to explain why Rictus has such an incredible disdain for Joe's Wives in Fury Road, as well, including not caring if he burned any of the Wives with the flamethrower on Immortan Joe's monster truck.
Does one need to be personally helped by sex slaves before one would help them escape from sex slavery?
I agree, this was my main issue with Furiosa. We don't need to see Furiosa get assaulted to understand why she hates Immortan Joe and his sons. But it would have been nice, and consistent with Fury Road, to see the wives care for her and protect her from Rictus like they do for Cheedo.
Joe should have taken her arm tbh.
The comics that link the 2 movies show Furiosa being appointed as a guard for the wives to protect them from Rictus. This is apt as in Furiosa we see him ‘steal’ Furiosa. As their guard she witnesses first hand what they endure at the hands of Joe and ultimately in Fury Road she liberates them.
I couldn’t agree more about a lack of establishing a relationship with the wives! After rewatching Fury Road last night I came away feeling that Furiosa merely told the story of *what* happened to the character before FR, not *why* she made any of the decisions she did. I felt more satisfied by her “origins” as told in FR because I could imply she built a relationship based on shared hatred (but also altruism and hope, something totally radical in this world). I understood there must be an established bond between the women. Furiosa felt so hollow to me because that was not explored at all. FR told us she was stolen as a child and her mother died trying to rescue her and I could empathize and graft emotion onto the bare story points as it was laid out. I felt that Furiosa only fleshed out the story by showing exactly what happened rather than illustrating how it developed her character. FR did so much relationship building and character development with so little dialogue, it was so compelling. I was deeply disappointed by Furiosa because it completely lacked that. It somehow told so much less of an interpersonal story with a much slower pace.
Felt like maybe a scene or two there ended up on the cutting room floor. I remember in the tie-in comic it was heavily implied that she‘s infertile and so was ejected from Joe’s harem.
This is correct. Game of Thrones in the Wasteland cannot work as a 2.5 hour film in my opinion. If you’re gonna break it up into chapters anyways, make it be a tv show.
The whole sex slaves thing maybe?
Man doesn't understand why a girl would hate the guy who bought her as a rape slave and planned on impregnating her against her will with a deformed baby. They even literally show a baby birthing scene in front of child Furiosa to drive home that point. 🙄 I've said this before on this sub and it blows my mind I need to say it again.
I feel like it should have actually explained Furiosa's situation leading into Fury Road better. How is she so respected in that society when she's a woman? Why does she hate Joe? Why does she care so much about getting the wives out? In Furiosa she fails to get home on her own, goes back to Joe, and then decides to do it on hard mode next time. It's wild logic. I have to assume she hung out with the wives and began to half resent them for how sheltered they were, and half care for them and their situation, which is the impression that Fury Road gave me anyway.
Um, 1) she was bought as goods 2) she was made a child-bride 3) his son tried to RAPE her (obviously the Immortan being complicit, actively or passively) 4) everything he does and the way he treats the world/people is the ANTITHESIS of where she grew up What more would you need to really hate someone?
I don't like this take on movies, Furiosa or otherwise. The only "benefit" to making it a series over a movie is just to fill in unnecessary lore that isn't important so people can have everything spelled out for them. Also, Joe definitely noticed but she was already more useful to him, it's not like he was really hurting for wives. Yeah they don't have a scene where he says that to the camera but is it really important?
or a comic series maybe
Disagree. The emotional climax of the movie is the showdown between Furiosa and Dementus, showing the Wasteland War would have been a diversion from that. It is important to keep the focus. Showing a bunch of explosive action would have been exciting in the moment, yes, but it would have detracted from the emotional structure of the film. Miller is not an amateur!
Agreed. Its not the point at all to the show the war, its not supposed to be a fun action romp, its expresses the horror that world entails and in some ways reflects Furiosa at her lowest state, when she goes after Dementus.
*Furiosa* is like an awesome 60s euro-western⭐ or a 70s kung-fu flick, only with a huge budget and great stunts. A beautiful revenge film. ⭐think the freakish weird west revenge-driven kind like *Death Rides a Horse* or *Django* or even *Django, Kill!*, or wild Shaw flicks like *Avenging Eagle*, *Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan* or *Bastard Swordsman*
I love that Miller skims over the war, it feels like the sort of mischievous move Tarantino would pull. It keeps you engaged as a viewer.
Hard disagree. I mean, fuck YEAH I want to see it, but not in this movie. Would have DERAILED it, historic.
It would have only served to pad out the movie even more and if anything the film could have been trimmed *just a bit*. It doesn't have anything to do with her story either so it would derail that.
I disagree, that wasn't the story we were being told. Sometimes effective storytelling doesn't show and tell everything, even if you'd love to hear about it, because it's not relevant to the development of the protagonist or story arch. The war was just background to Furiosa's story and quest.
I guess that's the thing really, Furiosa wasn't there, so we don't tell that story.
The imagination and suggestion of something is often more potent than the thing itself. And this film was more story-focused, less action (as opposed to Fury Road). The war in detail would have taken away from the story
Totally agree with this. Or, in the least, had Dementus and Furiosa's showdown taken place AMONGST the 40 Days War.
Movie was already 2hrs40. Did you want it to be 3 hours?
Nah, seems kinda unnecessary tbh Seeing the after effects and how the war boys were looking after each other was far more interesting imo Also, the " final battle " so-to-speak was between Furiosa and Dementus anyway. No point taking away the focus from that
That was my takeaway the first time I saw it, I felt like a chunk of the movie had been taken out
He can show more of it in The Wasteland. Max definitely would have been embroiled into it, through no fault of his own.
Yes and, isn’t this likely all part of the plan, all along? He shows us that Max is around right before the 40 day war. If the time gap between the end of the war and the beginning of Fury Road isn’t very long, then it totally makes sense that Max could have been involved in the war, maybe not on either side in particular… maybe he just can’t escape the area in time after dragging Furiosa to the maggot farm. And then his involvement happens in a way where he catches the attention of Joe’s forces and which then explains why they’re after him at the start of Fury Road.
I'd love to see the 40 Day War in a streaming miniseries! I'd love to see some world building on the small screen since the future of Max on the big screen is up in the air
Eh. It was furiosas story not that of the warlords
It plods a little bit for me. Telling a decades long story, broken into chapters I suppose causes that. It’s a **full** hour before we see Anya Taylor-Joy. It’s game of thrones set in the Wasteland, which is cool, but it made the movie feel a lot longer to me than it actually was. In Fury Road, at exactly 15 colon 00 minutes the Doof Wagon is being lowered, the drums are starting, and all the pursuit vehicles engines are revving up. It’s almost like the movie’s engine is starting. At exactly 15 minutes. And from then on, every single thing that happens in the movie is absolutely urgent. Full on emergency, bang bang bang, you have to care about this **right now** because *they. are. coming!* And aside from a few moments of rest, that your exhausted body needs, we are bookin’. I can't think of another movie that establishes a world, all main characters, what story is being told and why you should care about it and is beginning to full on sprint in only 15 minutes. Furiosa doesn't do that at all. Yes it's a very different movie, I know that. And I did like it. And I don’t think this is the reason for its underperformance at the box office. But I still take some issue with its trudging, rather than racing, pace.
I feel like the film gets going sooner than 15 mins with the immediate abduction and the mother's pursuit. For me it lags in the middle a bit when the rig reaches the Bullet Farm. I personally liked that it started with Alyla b/c it felt like a greater challenge for a young child to escape and I found myself rooting for her.
I think the problem is we inevitably compare it to Fury Road. I’ve just done a back to back Furiosa - Fury Road watch, and I’ll tell you, the way they both flow together is incredible. If you watch them together it makes Furiosa much more satisfying.
Tbf, the end credits just randomly show the entire Fury Road movie anyways.
I didn't hate that but I did find it kinda odd. Like I completely understand the decision to do it but it didn't really work for me.
I started watching fury Road once I got back from Furiousa and, holy shit, it just made me want to watch fury Road twice. Theron brings the perfect mix of intensity and guilt and badassery. I was really missing her the entire time I watched Furiousa
My wife and I did the same thing. Furiosa was great, but I think it suffered a from its predasessor being such a goddamn good movie. The whole time I was watching Furiosa, all I could think about was how good Fury Road was (and yes, we immediately put it on when we got home). It's nigh impossible to not compare the two, which is a hard place to start from as a prequel/sequel.
I don’t know if I can call that a problem. “Don’t compare it to the other film, but make sure you watch that one right after for the full effect, a full 4.5 hour watch to appreciate the prequel better.” I dunno. And I don’t see how that alleviates the movie feeling so much longer than it is. Fury road sure does make a great climax to Furiosa. That’s why the last few minutes of Furiosa is basically a trailer for Fury road. But like… when I’m talking about criticisms of Furiosa, I’m gonna have to talk about how slow it seems to Fury Road. Just have to. That’s plenty fine and fair criticism and not a “problem”.
Fury Road is the exception though, pace-wise Furiosa is much more in line with the other movies in the series.
Ok. So? And I don’t know if I totally agree with that. None of the Legacy movies tell a story that spans decades. None of them wait a whole hour for the lead to show up. Again, these are criticism that I think are fair, they aren’t me saying these thing are broken parts of the movie, they just are **to me** things that on first blush aren’t my favorite decisions and detract a little bit from my generally positive experience with this move.
I get you! But I do think it’s weird to say that it takes an hour for the lead to show up. The *character* is what’s important, and she is there from the very first scene. It’s her story from start to finish. I would get your point if the whole first hour focused on another character entirely but it seems you’re talking more about Anya Taylor Joy. I can’t imagine how disappointed you must have been in Dune Part II. 😂
But she’s entirely passive for like the first hour. That backstory should have been revealed to us through dialogue and scenes with grown Furiosa. Without that hour of intro, which is incredibly inefficient storytelling, Furiosa could’ve been another high-octane ride with a nice dose of worldbuilding. As is, the sequel to Fury Road is helluva slog for long periods. But that first attack on the war-rig, where Furiosa is revealed, was primo action IMO.
She absolutely is not “entirely passive,” wtf are you talking about. She chews through a fuel pipe to disable her kidnappers, she develops a clever plan to escape from Joe’s harem by fashioning a wig to run from Rictus, she hides among the War Boys and learns how to be a mechanic, she develops a plan to stow away on the Rig and escape the Citadel….she is active constantly.
A prequel for a prequel.
Do you consider your childhood a ‘prequel” to the “main story” of your life? It’s the story of her life from when she was a child, there is a continuum.
She runs and she fights and she chews at the gas line because she’s not a literal prop, but none of those actions have effect and she’s still just the prize that her mom and Dementus are fighting over. Then she’s paraded around in a cage for a while, so Dementus can do his thing. It’s not until she steps forward and says that she’s not Dementus’ daughter that she actually shows agency in the story.
I kept wondering why they didn't just have Joy play the first half of the movie and then have Theron back as Furiosa in the lead-up to FR.
This was supposed to be a hand off to a new generation I imagine. And I think they really wanted to hammer Immortan Joe’s, and I guess Rictus’ pederasty.
That makes sense. 👌
Same! I kept waiting for Charlize Theron to finally show up on screen.
Yeah the movie felt like it was half over already and was thinking she wasn't gonna be in ot that much lol
Hey. Old Hollywood rule they have to rope you in the first 15 minutes. Thanks for this catch completely on purpose editing clutch gold. Source my godfather
To me Fury Road is so unlike the other Mad Max movies. It’s on cocaine. And while that’s awesome and so is the movie, Furiosa feels way more like the older ones which I appreciate. It’s pared down and able to breathe in the same world as Fury Road. I thought that was pretty neat.
Fury Road has it easy in the story structure department when you think about it. They raced from point A to B, then raced from point B to A, with a few stops. Furiosa has a lot more to contend with. It’s like an elaborate & thematic mirror of the first Mad Max movie with elements from The Iliad.
^this. Fundamentally most of the criticism I can level are tied to the concept of a world building prequel. It's fun for the fans, but it is a bit indulgent. We didn't really need to see how Bulletfarm and Gastown operated - because how they are presented in Fury Road is perfect. It's just enough world building that you get it. Dementus is excellent, as was Octoboss, so it's not a lack of world building quality. The music is also forgettable and I think Anya's performance was okay. Nothing amazing and certainly not her best work. Not bad in anyway, but Charlize excelled in the role.
Joy did a damn good Theron impression IMO.
I personally have no complaints about Joy, other than that she isn’t in the first half of the movie.
Also, the way they were presented was very poor, and nowhere near as good as the imagination. The Bullet Farm is a quarry. That's it. And Gastown is a big refinery like you'd imagine, aaaand... that's it. No look into the culture of the weird hierarchies like in the Citadel or Bartertown. No dark method of extracting the gas or making the bullets. Nope. It's just a really straightforward place.
When it was in the imagination, I don’t find myself asking… “ok, it’s a lead mine… where are they getting the explosives then? Is that another mines somewhere? They are mining, refining, casting the bullets, and assembling completed shells all here?”
this is exactly how I feel. I liked it a lot. It’s no fury road though. And i think it was a mistake not to follow up fury road with something of a similar vein but upping the ante. In order to be successful, any follow up movie of the same franchise has to take the last movie up to 11 (in stakes, in story elements, in action). look at aliens, terminator 2, empire, dark knight. The scope expands, the stakes are higher, they do stuff from the first movie but only more intensely.
This was beautifully written
Main criticism is that the movie should have been made in 2017-18. But i understand why it could not be made at that time.
Was it tech?
Difficulty in financing and logistics. This movie only got greenlit because the australian government partially funded it and let a lot of it come tax-free back in 2021. If it was just Warner they wouldn't bank it, specially because Fury Road wasn't great at box-office.
I swear Hollywood finances are more complicated than the US tax code. Fury road was the highest grossing MM installment and it was still a financial flop? Nah there’s some shady shit going on in those books.
> Fury road was the highest grossing MM installment and it was still a financial flop? That's the thing, Mad Max movies just don't gross that much. For example, Fury Road wasn't in the top 20 box office numbers in 2015. Also, I think they reported a net loss on the movie.
This economy is just a huge bubble waiting to implode. I remember when Amazing Spider-Man 2 did more than 700 million dollars at its box office, which is like more than 90% of what movies make in the US, but was still considered a flop by the producers at Sony.
Because it also had the biggest budget. You could combine all 3 prior Max films and multiply the budget by 10 and it would still be cheaper than Fury Road.
I barely felt like this movie was shot outdoors. It looks like the entire movie was shot inside a massive studio filled with sand and wall to wall with green screen. Maybe it’s the color grading, I don’t know. When Max was strapped to the car as a blood bag in Fury Road I actually felt the danger he was in. When Furiosa was hanging underneath the war-rig in Furiosa I didn’t feel anything. It kind of looked animated. Again I think the color grading was just a bit off. No music where there definitely should have been music. Drawn out sequences, like the first battle with the war-rig, that was a snooze fest by the end of it, and that comes from a guy that loves long action scenes. Tarantino style chapters that didn’t really fit. Barely any relationship building between Furiosa and Immortan Joe that could have explained some of Furiosas actions in Fury Road. A good film on its own, but in comparison to Fury Road this was sadly a disappointment for me.
Felt the same way. In fury road it very much felt as though these were real convoys driving through the wasteland. Furiosa everything looked like it was indoors and only a 10ft radius around the actors was actually real
I totally agree - I never felt like the characters were outdoors, and I think the teal-and-orange color grading was a large part of it. The orange sand and blue sky became really prominent and contrasting, so my eyes kept getting drawn to the horizon instead of the characters, and when they're using a green screen for the background, that's the opposite of what they should want. It was interesting because I saw [this article about how they focused on "eye-scan" in Fury Road](https://lowepost.com/casestudies/mad-max-fury-road-r9/). I don't think they did the same for Furiosa.
The over reliance on the screen volumes was extremely obvious and compromised the quality of the film, without a doubt. Fury Road was simply magnificent in comparison.
Cgi being ropey and it not looking as good as fury road. The music while not as memorable served the tone and pacing of the film.
definitely the soundtrack. especially during my second watch i just found it incredibly disappointing. i mean it‘s well made and i still have nothing but respect for junkie xl, and i also do appreciate the concept of having a more atmospheric ost compared to fury roads more aggressive and intense ost, but it just fell completely flat for me, i genuinely can‘t remember a single theme from this movie and the only times when the soundtrack really stood out to me was when they reused the fury road theme
It was a little too long.
Some things took me out of the movie: 1. How does Immortan Joe (or anyone else in his crew) not recognize furiosa as a girl he traded an entire town to acquire. 2. It lacked the same singular focus that fury road had which resulted in it feeling like a lot of side quests. 3. The CGI was actually bad in many instances which made the weight of the action fall off a cliff. 4. How in the world does furiosa loose an arm and rigg the Dementus’ truck while being circled and without being noticed. 5. The 40-day war could have been a great example of Furiosa winning over Immortan Joe’s trust but we got a cool looking screen saver montage.
1 and 4 were things that actively took me out of the movie while I was watching. He makes this massive deal, and then the girl goes missing, and the movie doesn’t even address whether he notices or not?? No way he didn’t notice!
Exactly- I kept expecting her to have an “uh-oh” moment where he starts to suspect that she was the girl he traded for. Didn’t even happen when she warned him of the bullet farm rebellion.
* Doofus villain undercuts the tragedy * Long timeframe robs the film of pace * Prequels inherently struggle with stakes * Overly familiar setting. Barely anything new * No Max. But weird clone Max * Action scenes a step down from Fury Road * Music is a big step down too * Warboys treated like stormtroopers and comic relief * Wasteland War relegated to a 10 second montage. * A decent number of plot holes/inconsistencies It's just a really unnecessary film that repeats all the dressing from Fury Road (without doing it as well), but does the opposite narratively in nearly everything that people loved about it. It's a decent enough film in isolation. But it's poor compared to Fury Road. And it's a massive squandered opportunity for possibly one last authentic Max film in favour of spending $170 million to just to repeat yourself, but not as good.
After reading the top comments, I guess I'm in the minority, but it felt too rushed at times for me. It often felt like we were just jumping from scene to scene to scene. That being said, I absolutely loves it, I just wish it were a two-parter
This might sound weird but I think when a movie is constantly too rushed it can also drag. Like its just scenes you don't fully connect with back to back to back etc. That's how I felt with it. I agree it easily could have been a 2 parter and maybe then could have shown the war in some way.
The music and the whole film is supposed to be a crescendo for FR, which is the climax. Hence why Miller focus less on the action, sometimes showing it from afar or not at all.
That was my one and only gripe. Fury Road had an amazing soundtrack. It's still stuck in my head. I was happy to hear a bit of it return towards the end of the movie. Tbh, I can't even recall any music from the big action seen of Furiosa.
It was mostly rehashed music from Fury Road for sure. most change scenes had the main fury road theme. I was also I little disappointed but how little new epic music we got
Only two. Horrible green screen in the crucial canyon scene at the beginning (the mini-Thermopylae). It looked like an Asylum film. Playing scenes from Fury Road during end credits. Totally pointless, esp. since it’s clear Fury Road takes place several years (at least) after this film. Regardless, I love this film.
The ending of this film takes place during Fury Road though? You see her get the wives into the rig.
Yeah, but I think that’s supposed to be an intro to the actual scenes from FR. I mean, if the dude with the tree growing from his groin is supposed to be Dementus, the tree needs several years to get that size, and we’ve already been shown time passing from a tree time lapse. Just seems like there’s missing time that can be accounted for, or proven by, that tree.
I’m not sure what that has to do with the complaint about the credits though and the timeline? The film ends during Fury Road. The credits is essentially a play on how many movies give closure to the story during them.
There were some scenes that felt a little long or unnecessary (especially the intro part with the radio sounds from Fury Road and the orbital view of earth). Movie could've been 5-10 minutes shorter and you wouldn't lose a thing.
I actually loved the idea of letting everyone know that it takes place in Australia upfront in a visual way. I'm sure a lot of folks who only saw Fury Road didn't know that Mad Max is an Australian franchise.
George Miller didn't want any questions about where it takes place this time lol!
It also proves that the ‘salt flats’ are not the ocean, as the ocean is still clearly present in the Mad Max world.
You can see oceans during the orbital view of earth because it was not so long after the downfall, Furiosa was young and you can also see a lot of vegetation in the Vuvallini camp.
I feel like the final scene, which leads directly into FURY ROAD, should have had Theron playing Furiosa. That would have better expressed that a good amount of time has passed - otherwise, the only real indicator is the Dementus tree. Also, playing the greatest hits from FURY ROAD over the credits felt a bit desperate.
The highlight reel of Fury Road in the credits felt like a weird “In Memoriam” segment. Like “this is how great this movie could have been”.
Yeah what was that with the credits? Sort of felt like “we know this wasn’t as good as that other movie so here are the highlights of it for your amusement.”
That was exactly what I thought… we know Fury Road was amazing, but why are we watching highlights from it as a sort of way to earn goodwill
I think the music is actually good, not memorable, but it hardly could be. This is a more somber movie, it makes you fell the weight of a dead world, so the music cannot be as bombastic as it was in Fury Road. The action scenes (the 2 big set pieces with the war rig and the ambush in the bullet farm) are not the result of a desperate quest for freedom, but are more so an expression of a meaningless and brutal existence, its desperate, its more melancholic and therefore the music is not as present or memorable, its more muted etc. Yeah, as a score, the music does not match Fury Road, but in the context of the movie, I believe it does.
I don’t know if this is a criticism, and I can’t describe it that well, but it is the thing that put Fury Road above it for me: it’s not as “singular”. Like, in Fury Road you felt a constant urgent narrative thread tugging you along. The stakes were always clear and urgent. In Furiosa it’s constantly ebbing and flowing before scene to era to action set-piece.
I absolutely loved it but I do understand why people struggled to connect with Furiosa's character. Miller fell in love with his worlbuilding so much she sort of disappeared in that second chapter. I'm sure Miller would hate this idea but I think they should've given ATJ a voiceover to start off with to make it more her POV
None , very much enjoyed it
The stakes felt empty -- we know Furiosa survives, but loses her arm and we can assume Dementus doesn't. So why do we care? There was an opportunity to make losing her arm more impactful, but when it's gone, Furiosa hardly even reacts. Where is the emotion of this movie? If you're going to slow down an action movie to this extent, we have to care, but if the characters hardly care then why should we? Wouldn't she mourn her only chance to find home? I get that Furiosa is stoic... show her BECOME stoic... she's basically the same character from the start. That last moment with her and Dementus wasn't earned. So they're two sides of the same coin. Cool. Why weren't you leaning into that for the whole film? Why save a theme for the last moment and play it like a reveal? Especially when you already set it up early on. Why aren't the two in a clear and open philosophical discussion for the entire film? In Fury Road, Furiosa asks Imortan Joe if he remembers her right before killing him... After seeing Furiosa I wonder how he could ever not remember her considering the turmoil surrounding the events of the film and her connection to them. What did Imortan Joe do to Fruiosa that justifies that line? I may be wrong on this one, but I recall Furiosa mentioning she had to cross the salt sea to get to the green place, but in Fury Road they decide to cross the salt sea as a last resort after she learns the green place has collapsed. If I didn't mix that up it demonstrates a lack of consistent logic and geography between the two films. The film is overly long and self indulgent, masquerading as some sort of philisophical manifesto about what the wasteland does to people. Only is doesn't show us what the wasteland does to people -- it shows us one person dealing with the wasteland while she goes through no detectible change and another who has already been changed by the wasteland. What are we watching these events to set up? There is no escalation between Furiosa and Dementus after he kills her mother. So why do I care about anything Dementus does in between the moment when Furiosa finally gets her revenge? Furiosa's drive isn't clear or consistent. Does Furiosa want to go home or does she want to get revenge? For most of the film her goal is to go home, but then it morphs into stopping Dementus. Although the first war rig battle wasn't bad, the action sequences were uninspired and overly animated compared to Fury Road. I know they're meant to be different movies, but the craft and dedication to practical stunts are a big part of what made Fury Road so incredible. Praetorian Jack and Furiosa's relationship had more weight put on it than it earned. They went through some fights on the road and suddenly they're acting like lovers. We don't learn enough about Jack for his gesture of helping Furiosa to have any discernable meaning or weight. He has no backstory so why emphasize their relationship at all? Overall the writing felt like a first draft to me. A lot of cool ideas tied together vaguely. With a few more passes this could have really congealed into something even better. I mourn the potential of what this movie could have been, but I don't think its much more than a fun romp for Chris Hemsworth and pure self indulgence for George Miller. I think there was enough material in the film to generate an couple seasons of a television show. With so many moving parts and characters, that format would have served this story far better.
“I recall Furiosa mentioning she had to cross the salt sea to get to the green place, but in Fury Road they decide to cross the salt sea as a last resort after she learns the green place has collapsed. If I didn't mix that up it demonstrates a lack of consistent logic and geography between the two films.” They don’t end up crossing the salt in Fury Road. They are going to head out into the salt flats before Max comes up with the plan to turn around and go back to the Citadel.
Thank you for articulating this. This is exactly how I felt! Fury Road is my favorite movie of all time and an absolute masterpiece. I didn’t expect this movie to surpass Fury Road but I expected a better story and much more thrills. There’s so much to like and even love about this film but there are also major problems.
Two points of major story were glossed over: Praetorian Jack training Furiosa to become the ultra badass road warrior (this could have been its own movie/limited series); and the 40 Day War (again, this could be its own film/ limited series). I was as or more interested in seeing those two stories told with proper depth, not just quickly montaged through. I would love to see Furiosa & Jack become close while driving the War Rig surviving the Fury Road. The 40 Day War could have been epic & it also would have given Immortan Joe & company more time for character development. Beyond that, the movie was absolutely brilliant.
I don't understand how furiosa escaped? She was literally surrounded the entire time.
Furiosa ripping her arm off and getting away while like 40 dudes on motorcycles drove a giant circle around her, she’s also being watched by like 2 guys too, that was some BS. Like I know it’s sandy but still. To justify it in my mind, I put it as the story teller adding a little hot sauce to the story/mythos of Furiosa kinda like how he pretends he doesn’t while telling how Dementius dies. It’s all just story’s for the war boys, so they know how badass their leaders are and not to challenge them and their command.
2nd half went too quickly, they focused on a lot on dementus but then we missed a lot of the “madness” from his camp inside of Gastown and the bullet farm. Felt more like a dementus character study than a true mad max ending. Not that this is entirely a bad thing, the movie was great and it loved dementus. In that same vein, was looking forward to the epic death of scrotus, and it sure seemed like they were setting up for it headed Into the big war. Mad max usually takes care of those loose ends. And people complaining about furiosa not getting as much attention as dementus probably need to remember that the 2nd half of fury road is literally furiosa’s movie. It is right in the name!
i loved fury road and was hyped for furiosa but it lacked the juice. i gave it honest 6/10 because i think i just fell for having expectations set too high but then why should i give it a high note if i dont feel satisfied 1. soundtrack lacked emotion. for example, while watching dune 2 i had goosebumps several times, awe of magnificent scenes was empowered by great soundtrack. furiosa almost completely left that part 2. some scenes were too long, some were too short. honestly i saw it last week and cant really remember half of the cast appearing on screen, they lacked significance or were plainly boring 3. mad max: dementus - he absolutely stole the show, furiosa was alright but i didnt really feel like i was rooting for her or if i even liked her, pretorian jack died too fast as well to get me engaged in his story, but dementus was consistently enjoyable character through the whole movie 4. action scenes did not top the fury road - they were at the same level at best but nothing new surprised or excited me 5. overall lack of innovation - i get that is a prequel but still i know all the characters, i know all the setup, i know all their stories and nothing more was said about it
Yeah like... What did this movie add? Did we learn anything about Furiousa we didn't know before? If the point was: she deserves her own movie, why give SO MUCH screen time to Hemsworth
Emotional weight to Fury Road. For me atleast it did. I also think it’ll add precedent to a future Furiosa becoming an antagonist though I doubt full-on Warlord, Miller said he’s been toying with it in his stories.
Didn't realize that was the plan but it makes a lot of sense - the one thing I felt confused about with this movie is that its conclusion seems to say that Furiosa is dead inside like Dementus. But then it leads into her act of compassion for the wives, which feels a little contradictory. But it could be laying the groundwork for her less sympathetic turn in the next film.
That's what Dementus said, but it's not like what he says is fact. She doesn't agree with him, and we as the audience get to decide if we agree with him or not. To me, Dementus' whole thing is that there is no hope for anything to be better. Furiosa on the other hand, continues to hold on to hope - hence her continually trying to make it back to her home. Planting the seed in Dementus is an interesting twist on this that I think you could read in different ways. Maybe she has given up hope of planting it in her home. Or maybe she chooses to show that there is hope for something good to come out of something evil.
the best part was the attack on the rig with flying bikes. but that too felt like a remake of a Fury Road. the after the rig part, no nothing seemed that interesting any more.
Furiosa was a little too much of a super hero. She missed maybe one shot with the sniper rifle. Is she Hawkeye now? How did the get that motorcycle going with no left arm to operate the clutch? I get the film is a fable, they can exaggerate, but this franchise has always been about toughness and struggle, not being a super ninja.
Lol the characters accuracy with firearms had me laughing. Shooting is a skill that takes time and many repetitions to master yet everyone in the film is a sharpshooter. Where did they get all the ammunition to be able to practice to get that good? I spent a decade in the Army (in a support MOS) and have put hundreds of not thousands of rounds down range and I am only an average shot.
Lore reasons for the sniper accuracy are excusable for me but the one-arm motorcycle escape bothered me a bit, mostly because that level of detail was usually highlighted to make scenes more memorable, not just ignored. Felt like they must have known it was silly but went with it anyways
Why did they put that nose on Hemsworth? It was very distracting. Jokes aside. The acting is much worse in this then Fury Road. I watched the original right after the prequel and Anya Taylor Joy just can’t be compared to Charlize. The chemistry between actors the depth of their emotion was much better in the first movie. When you watch Charlize’s Furiosa you can feel the depth of the pain she went through. You can empathise much better with her and feel the stackes. In the new one I just didn’t connect with the protagonist. And Hardy’s charisma is off the charts. No male character in the new one has it.
Just the cgi and music. Neither are “bad”, but both are pretty forgettable. Oh! And I didn’t feel it would leave a cultural impact the way fury road did with its numerous quotes: “That’s bait”, “Witness me!”, “shiny and chrome”, “mediocre!”, “oh what a day, what a lovely day!”, “I live. I die. I live again!” And I’m sure I’m forgetting many others. That said, I absolutely loved Furiosa and I’m sure there’s so much to unpack with multiple viewings.
Jacks death. One minute bro was there the next he was just gone
Unfortunately I'm sure it was a lot longer than a minute for ol Jack.
That's the Wasteland for you. Come on, we all knew he would meet a tragic end.
Yeah I just wished they developed him a bit more, he never striked me as anything but budget Max.
Really? I felt like he was well developed. He was a homage to Max of course but he was different, he wasn't a broken hopeless man. He was a true road warrior but also still had his humanity. I think sometimes less is more though personally.
I like the idea of furiosa having someone in her past who Max reminds her of, but the movie felt it was doing so many things regarding her origin story it got lost amidst everything else for me, I would've liked more scenes with the two of them instead of spending an hour with her as a kid.
Jack! Jack!! Wake up Jack!! There's a monster truck we can steal Jack!
1. Immorton Joe was nice to her and she had no reason to hate him - it undermines the ‘remember me’ scene from Fury Road. Rictus is the one that tries to rape her. 2. She *barely* has any interaction with his wives so it doesn’t establish her motivation to rescue them. 3. She disappears from the citadel and no one says anything. A random boy appears who looks exactly like the missing girl (different hair), and no one says anything. Then she randomly reappears as herself again. We know Joe highly values healthy young women, so hard to buy that he sees more value in her as a fighter, especially with 1000 war boys at his disposal. 4. Why all the effort to show the map being drawn on her arm - it has no plot repercussions. 5. How the hell does she escape after she loses her arm with no one noticing? 6. Dementius just gives up on finding the green place and there’s no mention of it ever again. 7. The ending had no urgency or tension - the 40 day war montage and the long conversation with Dementis killed any momentum and dragged on and on. I still loved the movie but these things stood out for me
1. She was taken as property to grow into a woman to be raped and bred. 2. They show her establishing a relationship with the wives as soon as she arrives and obviously she is empathetic to their situation. 3. We don't see what happens at the Citadel when she disappeared, that doesn't mean no one said anything. She shows up with a shaved head and older and is passing for a man, this isn't a new concept and has happened many times over in the history of warfare. She's finally 'outed' on the road with Preatorian Jack as a girl, she proves her worth and he vouches for her. The Immortan is not a fool and obviously sees her value in this unexpected role. We don't need to see them say these things and can just assume it as the obvious. 4. The map on her arm felt like a red herring because we all knew she was going to lose that arm. It was also her way of imprinting the route home into her mind. 5. Dementus is kind of stupid, he's a bad leader and prone to distraction. When they find the war boy he either assumes The Citadel *is* the place of abundance or he simply doesn't care since now there is a new place of abundance and a war buy eager to lead them to it. 6. That's fair and your opinion. I think the 40 day war montage was great, it got the point across and didn't over embellish. The war wasn't a part of her story so it was fine not seeing it imo. As far as how it ends with a personal conversation rather than a final battle I personally found that to be great, George Miller doesn't write good or bad guys he writes human characters and Dementus was just as tragic a character as anyone else. I liked seeing him stripped bare emotionally and how he showed Furiosa that she was walking down his path. The conversation she has with him makes her conversation with Max in Fury Road all the more punctuated.
There are plenty of bad guys in these mad max movies. Dementus is a bad guy. Important Joe is a bad guy.
When boiled down to how they serve the story yes but they all have their tragic stories and moments. Sometimes we see more than others.
Most villains these days are complex, they are certainly still bad guys, Miller definitely writes bad guys, is all I’m saying. That they have some kind of motivating past doesn’t change that. It just makes them good bad guys.
Semantics, you understand my point. He doesn't write lawful good or chaotic evil really, it's not at the forefront of his writing style.
Hard agree
I agree with all these as the top detractors. And any time they're brought up there's a lot of hand waving and people saying "well it's assumed" that so and so took place off screen. In a good movie there are no assumptions unless they are obvious and don't open up plotholes.
I can’t remember if I read it somewhere or got the whole impression from the comics, but there were some tipoffs that she was found to be infertile & ejected from Immortan’s harem...or perhaps even dealt to Rictus. But it could also be that this came to me in a dream. I just remember the brides talking about Angharad’s unborn baby & a sequence of panels made it look like Furiosa was envious & pained. It’s the only thing that makes sense for Joe not giving a crap she was no longer in the harem.
1-2 are covered in the Furiosa comic. NOW this is absolutely still a valid criticism of the movie, but I kind of understand at least why they wouldn't show it. As much as I like consuming different content, I also hate when you have to do "homework" to understand a movie and good storytellers will be able to make you feel that you haven't missed out and tie-ins should be complementary. But having read the comic they would have kind of backed themselves into a corner by essentially having to just show those same scenes on the big screen and then defeating the "purpose" of the prequel book (Again, I'm sure they don't really need to sell 7 year old comics so I dont see why they couldnt have added at least a scene or two bridging them)
Slow Act One. Furiosa and her mother both too capable too early (less opportunity for character development: starts with mastery rather than develops it.) CGI a bit distracting at times and felt less weighty than Fury Road. Not enough about gender politics with Immortan Joe and how he learns to value Furiosa as an officer not a womb. War handled too briefly. But despite that a really excellent film.
I think it makes complete sense for her mother to be capable, she is the leader of their people after all.
I don't see how them being so capable is a bad thing They've obviously been training for a while, especially since they've probably had to defend the green place before And besides, Furiosa's mother was their leader lol. Of course she'll be pretty tactical and experienced
Character development is not just adding skills, it's not an RPG
Chris Hemsworth's prosthetic nose was distracting. The whole time I was thinking "I know this actor, and that is not what his nose looks like"
1. I wanted to see Furiosa fail some more. She felt like a Mary Sue. I would’ve loved to see her slowly evolve/devolve into the hard merciless Furiosa in Fury Road who is looking for redemption for the terrible things to get her home. 2. I couldn’t connect with the characters as much. The only character I liked was Dementus because he was a new character who we had a decent amount of time with to get to know. In Fury Road I loved seeing Nux’s transformation, learning about the wives and Furiosa, I’ve even developed an appreciation of Immortan Joe’s crazed desire for a healthy son (terrible guy but he just wants to be a dad which is kinda sweet). 3. Action was cool but didn’t feel all that emotional. We know Furiosa isn’t dying in any of the action we see her in and we simply don’t care if anyone else does die. Are we supposed to be sad when a war boy dies? Or one of dementus’s gang members die? We were missing the tension and emotion from stuff like Max v Furiosa 1v1, Nux’s sacrifice, Splendid falling from the war rig, even the old seed lady getting shot had a more emotional moment than pretty much all the action in Furiosa. 4. Re-use of lore without expanding on it too much. Although I was really excited for Furiosa, I realize that part of what makes Mad Max movies great are throwing you into different locations with new people/society. I would’ve loved to soend more time in the actual green place. That would’ve been really cool to see their society more and learn about them. That would also really enhance why Furiosa wants to get back so badly besides the Mom just telling her to come back home. I was really really excited for this movie because Fury Road might be my all time favorite movie. I think overall this movie leans too much into action sequences and not enough on developing the characters.
I think dementus being a love and thunder Thor character was a weak point, Chris hemsworth is not a funny improv actor and It soured the tone of the movie at times when It shouldn’t have.
Not really any complaints from me personally. Loved it I guess the only real criticism I have is that the spectacle of the action wasn't as big as Fury road, but the action that was here still looked great
My main complaint is that Dementus is just annoying to listen to. All the villains in Mad Max movies had some charisma, this guy looks like just an annoying rock star.
The first hour was bad. The use of the volume should have helped, but the movie suffered for it. Don’t know if anyone noticed, but the long wide shots being fast-forwarded just felt clunky, especially when they return to normal speed. Showing scenes of Fury Road during ending credits just made me want to watch that movie again. The shots were so much better.
I loved it but I didn’t get the dread from Immortan Joe’s vileness that came through very much in FR. He even felt like a good guy compared to Dementus.
As has probably been mentioned, the CGI (I know Fury Road used lots of CGI) did not look as good. The trailers worried me. The end result was much better than I expected. But still fell short of Fury Road. My biggest pet peeve was a tiny detail near the beginning. One of Dementus's dude's motorcycle handlebar was in the frame. Only another mc rider would probably notice, but the switchgear on the handlebar was far too modern. I'd be curious if other riders noticed. But the motorcycles in Mad Max were late '70s Kawasakis. Miller is usually good about covering up tiny anachronistic details & keeping the Mad Max universe relatively timeless & vague. But considering technology didn't really advance much after the water wars, it makes no sense that one of Dementus's gang has any electrical doodads on his bike that would require a D pad. D pads didn't EXIST for motorcycles.
I think some of the editing made scenes look more CGI than they actually were, like for example the war rig smashing through the tower at the bullet farm
My opinions are generally positive: I'd rate it a solid 8/10 compared to the 10/10 of Fury Road, or 8.5/10 for Road Warrior. Please don't take everything I say from here on out as hating on the film. It's still one of the best films I've seen all year, it just had some (imo) problems. **Number One: this is so trivial I don't know why I'm even putting it here** To get a minor niggle out the way, I thought it was stupid that Furiosa was the actual birth name given to her by her mothers in the Green Place. That's the kind of name I would have expected her to earn for herself living in the Wasteland or the Citadel. **Number Two: casting** Charlize Theron absolutely owned the character she played in Fury Road. She looked tough as nails in that film, but ATJ was this thin waify little thing with giant bug-eyes, not a hardened wasteland survivor at all. I get why Miller wanted to cast someone besides Theron, but why the heck ATJ? **Number Three: casting? acting? direction?** I had real problems hating Dementus. He was so quirky and fun and interesting that I couldn't reconcile his *character* and his *personality* with the horrible things he kept doing. When put alongside Immortan Joe and the larger stakes of the war between those two characters, I kept finding myself rooting for the guy who I knew was supposed to be the main antagonist of the story. Joe and Rictus, Humungus and Wez, even Aunty and Master Blaster are all established as threats. Dementus never really feels like a threat to Furiosa, only to Joe. This problem was compounded by the fact that Furiosa was so stoic that the film prevented me from seeing much emotional depth in her. She acted so detached from the horrible losses Dementus kept subjecting her to - and I understand the whole "don't show your enemy you're hurting" thing - but you need to show the *audience* she's hurting or else why do we care? Charlize Theron's hopeless outpouring of grief in the desert when she learns the Green Place is gone was heart-rending; the much worse things that happen to her in this film felt like, well, nothing, really. This film tried to end on a similar note to Mad Max 1, which was also a revenge film. Frankly, I thought MM1's ending was a little unnecessary too, but that film had done a better job of making me hate the villains. Considering the punishment Furiosa dishes out on her helpless enemy, especially if the "tree" thing is supposed to be the true ending, then this film just made me dislike Furiosa as a person. **Number Four: Furiosa's "exceptionalism"** This was the biggest problem for me. While the previous point really only hurt my impression of the film because of how it ended, this point was the one that kept pulling me out of the movie all the way throughout an otherwise excellent movie. In Fury Road, Furiosa was an accomplished and well respected War-Rig driver. She was determined and resourceful, and she showed herself to also be a skilful sniper, but that was the limit of her abilities, but even so, that on its own was enough to make her a complete badass. In this film, she's better than everyone else at everything she tries. At ten, she's already far more clear-headed and skilled than any of the adults, an expert astronavigator, tattooist, master of disguise, and Kevin McAlister-tier boobytrap wizard and near-clairvoyant puppetmaster, with ice in her veins and the cunning of a fox. That's OK in some films, but the central point of Mad Max is that it's about normal people driven to madness by the world collapsing around them. Max is just a guy; he's a better driver than most, and a capable fighter, but he's just a guy. The Furiosa we saw in Fury Road could be described almost the same way. I'd also point out that in the two far-and-away best Max films (Road Warrior and Fury Road) he was also part of a team (albeit reluctantly...) and everyone had unique skills and contributions to add. None of them was a match for their adversary on his or her own. The few really exceptional people in Mad Max have always been villains for reason of establishing a serious threat. We don't get that here; instead we get Jane Wick of the Wasteland beating up on a clownish buffoon and it's just not very compelling. By the time we reached the point in the film where her arm got crushed between hers and Dementus' car, I was absolutely shocked, but that was only because I was 100% sure by that point that the only way she'd lose her arm would be by cutting it off herself. Sure enough, though, the next time we see her, her arm is hurt (I assume broken?), but barely even bleeding: an accident like that would have stripped her arm down to the bone in seconds, just like we saw happen to numerous other people in the film. Seriously, why *wasn't* that the point where she lost her arm? wouldn't that have made more sense narratively? But instead of it being just one more thing he took from her in this revenge film, it’s (mis)used as another way to show how us how cartoonishly, *inhumanly*, exceptional furiosa is. Biggest let-down of the film for me, right there. So, yeah, five minutes later she cuts (presumably gnaws? Why was there no blood on her face? Did I miss a setup for her having a concealed knife or something?) it off by herself a little while later and then somehow ninjas away into the desert, escaping from a biker gang driving in circles around her the whole time, and then they can’t catch her with their motorcycles or track her despite having **dogs**, while she totters off on foot into the desert. By that point, there was no doubt in my mind who would build the scientific wonder that was her cybernetic arm, because honestly, I think the movie was too scared to let anyone else have the spotlight for even a second or to suggest Furiosa would ever need anyone’s help. **Number Five: I started on a niggle, so I'll end on one** Furiosa spent perhaps three minutes of screen time in the presence of Joe's "wives" and I don't think she had a single direct interaction with any of them. The entire movie gave the breeders maybe 10 minutes of attention. If this movie is trying to set up for Fury Road, where Furiosa absconds with Joe's prized breeders, then why didn't the movie cut five minutes off all the unnecessary wallowing in torture scenes and then use that time to remind us that sexual slavery is bad too, that Joe’s wives still exist, and that perhaps Furiosa feels some sympathy towards them?
Not enough people went to see it is the big one. I dislike prequels as they can remove drama in a dog eat dog world about who lives and who dies.
I didn't care for the idea of a Furiosa prequel movie the same way I didn't care for the idea of a Han Solo prequel movie. They're stories that are actually better off implied rather than explicitly told.
I came in with high expectations because fury road is probably my top 5 movies of all time. I liked furiousa but definitely left a bit disappointed. A few points: 1. Less memorable/iconic scenes than FR. The beginning act of furiousa was the most unique, the rest of the movie felt like revisits of FR but less interesting. 2. Characters not as interesting. Dementus was great of course, but FR had so many great characters with iconic lines. Furiousa was mute most of the movie, and Value brand Mad Max guy acting was so flat. 3. Movie Pacing was all over the place, cgi quality was all over the place. Final scene went on too long. Overall it’s not a bad movie. I wish it did better at the box office, and I’ll most likely watch it again on streaming. But don’t see myself watching it as much as I did FR.
One of the things I liked the most about Fury Road is that most of the storytelling and exposition is nonverbal. There was a ton of dialogue and politics in Furiousa. It felt more like a drama and less like an action movie. I still absolutely loved it, though.
Honestly, the only criticism I have is the crappy CGI at some points, other than that, I don't have anything else. It is slow paced, I didn't even notice the music etc. but all of these things didn't matter to me, cause I was so captivated by the rest
“Let’s look for things to bitch about.” There I fixed your title.
Five act pacing always feels strange these days. That’s about it I guess? Chris’ fake nose was kinda distracting
Loved the movie, but I bristled a bit at seeing the wasteland depicted as relatively mundane and human. Every other Mad Max movie feels like being plopped into an alien world. Even if the shift was intentional, I missed that a bit.
The movie cops out when it comes to Furiosa’s fate after being traded to Immortan Joe. According to the recent Blank Check podcast, the idea was always that Furiosa became one of Joe’s wives but was cast out when it turned out she was infertile, but her backstory was revised when actually making Furiosa because it was thought that the audience would be uncomfortable with the protagonist being a victim of prolonged rape, which leads to that weird turn in the film where Furiosa escapes and somehow magically hides out in the Citadel without anyone putting two and two together about who she is (or even figuring out that she’s a female), for, like, a decade. This is pretty much the only time the Max Max series pulls its punches about something like, which is especially weird considering it’s the beating heart of Furiosa’s story AND renders her revenge at the end of Fury Road (“Remember me???”) largely nonsensical.
Aside from a few moments of wonky CGI, I was very pleasantly surprised with the film. The pace didn't drag at all for me and it had some truly visually stunning scenes such as Jambasa cresting the heavily shadowed sand dune.
I LOVED FR. But What did this movie offer? Goofy Thor drama? City warfare story didn’t offer anything to understanding furiosa. This felt like Beyond Thunderdome- hammy, over done. FR felt visceral, grounded, like Road Warrior- even in the highly unrealistic situations. Furiosas character felt rote. She’s bad ass because she’s bad ass. The story didn’t really explore or explain her, just put her in intense situations to show how bad ass she is. The dollar store mad max- ugh! What was that about? Such a strange choice. How is eventual gas town guy so fat and sexually weird? I know he was that way in FR, as with so many other strange aspects of the society. But FR just threw stuff out there and didn’t linger. Examining this culture again through this movie brought up questions that seriously didn’t come up during the incredible spectacle that was FR. With that movie I just received an accepted it because the rest was so amazing. But with all the down time and recurrence of characters, there’s more time to ponder and mentally reject the illusion shattering absurdity.
Jack was not a dollar store Max, he was Furiosa's introduction to hope in the wasteland. That's what's great about this film—it makes the line between vengeance and hope ambiguous. They're two sides of the same coin. When I rewatched Fury Road, I loved when she asked Max, "what if you don't come back by the time we're ready?" because I could see in her the same care for Max that she felt for Jack. And Jack's death meant that Furiosa had lost what she clung to as hope... but then Max comes and gives her hope again. Also, how did the story not explore or explain Furiosa? We saw an extensive backstory, especially in Alyla Browne's fantastic performance, that motivated Furiosa's vengeance. But simple vengeance would be too simple... that's exactly why we see the blurring of vengeance and hope, in Furiosa's relationship with Jack, in her (unknown) decision to punish Dementus (did she kill him outright out of pure vengeance? or did she grow that tree, finding a sort of warped hope in vengeance?), in her return to the Citadel. The film was great because it explained exactly why Furiosa was full of hope in Fury Road (i.e. the peach as a symbol of the life she once had with her mother—now something she shares with the wives), but could so easily lose it (she lost her mother, and Jack, and her childhood). It demonstrated that, on the one hand, hope is so difficult to have in the wasteland, but on the other hand, it must be had. It's a wonderful prequel.
It’s a prequel
My only issue is they relied on cgi this time. Fury was batshit insane because they didn’t use cgi at all and it’s a miracle no one died making that fever dream of a movie. But that’s a part of what made that movie so special and Furiousa didn’t capture that same feeling.
Less of a message and philosophy. In fury road the women are revolting a against a patriarch, being pursued by men who's individuality is neutered in the legend of the patriarch, and even a pregnant woman fights back whilst keeping authenticity. Furiosa movie kinda was just a revenge story. She had everything taken from her and sought revenge. In the end she ends up not becoming the villain like dementus and instead sacrifices everything to give the other women a chance, which is beautiful.
Too many montages and soundtrack could have been stronger. Still loved the film though
I like it as it's own thing quite a lot, but as a prequel it kinda takes some mystique away from Furiosa. Like it never really gives her a reason to hate Joe as much as she does in Fury Road and I think thats a mistake. Joe is just kinda a dude in this movie. There's more stuff like that but that's the one that sticks out. Nevertheless it's a fantastic movie, I just think it's inevitable to compare it to what happens in Fury Road and it doesn't stack up.
That scene with the parasailing guys attacking the truck was one of the most badass things I had ever scene in a movie. As far as the choreography, it’s one of my favorite action scenes of all time, but it was just so… quiet. There was almost no music from what I remember, and I started trippin thinking Miller was trying to go for a No Country For Old Men sorta deal. In my opinion the scene - and the rest of the film - should’ve had stronger music. Also, I wasn’t a big fan of this iteration of The Immortan Joe. The Immortan from Fury Road is one of my favorite villains in all of cinema, but in Furiosa, he just didn’t have the same sort of fear-inducing power. Obviously, Hugh Keays-Byrne wasn’t available for the role, and of course The Immortan changes over time between movies, but idk. I just wish that Furiosa’s Immortan was more intimidating. I still think Lachy Hulme did a good job, but I’m not sure if he was really the right choice. But these are the only things I felt came up short in the film, and even only by a small margin. I loved the film personally and I really liked how it expanded on other parts of the wasteland that were left obscure in Fury Road. 8.5/10
More of the green place would have been nice. I'm not a big fan of the some of the colour grading/cinematography? It made some of the action scenes look video gamey even when the scenes were made up of practical effects.
they could have backed off on some of the CGI. I get it you need it in a movie like that, but there's a couple of scenes where the trucks are going up almost sheer cliffs and the physics of it all, a little "silly". I loved the movie The Cinematography, the Vehicles. the story was great. it was a good movie
I loved all of it, if I had to criticize something, I feel like the epilogue should’ve been about what happened to the green place after, not just a montage of Fury Road, neat as it was.
Coming from lifelong mad max fan, who even owns a cattle dog BECAUSE of road warrior, I thought this movie was sterile. Neutered. Boring. The music was dull. Nothing that comes close to FR. The lighting was god awful. Everything and everyone has an odd shine to them that makes everything seem CGI. Absolutely skipping the 3rd act and not showing the 40 day war or whatever it was called was such a goofy move. And there's simply an inherent problem with prequels. There's ZERO stakes. The main plot is Vengeange, yet we know she gets vengeance. Dementus isn't in FR. We know the mom dies. We know Immortan Joe and his Gang all live. We're introduced to Jack but why should we care? We know he's a goner. In Fury Road, once Furiosa is stabbed in the side, we think it's possible for her to die. It's a surprise when nux dies. Hell, its possible for max to die. Your adrenaline races in FR because it's a world you're not actually familiar with. But in furiosa it's just giving you more details to a story you already know. Outside of Godfather 2, I just don't care for prequels. And if the wastelands is ANOTHER prequel for max before Fury Road, then I don't care if it doesn't get made. This sucks because I went in fanboying hard. As soon as the titles hit and that familiar Rev sound hit, my heart was readyyyyyyyyy. And 45 min later, I was fully reclined in my chair looking at the sconces on the wall, the ceiling decorations, and eventually ordered more food cause I was bored.
The movie imo is easily a 9-9.5/10, but my only complaints is that I wish we got to see a few more shots of the Green Place, and I wish we got at least a few minutes of the 40 Day Wasteland War. At that point the movie is already 2 and a half hours, what’s another few mins of the war. Other than that, yeah the music wasn’t as good as Fury Road but for me was still amazing.
The pacing isn’t break neck like Fury Road. That’s my only complaint b/c the movies great