geezer cinema: furiosa: a mad max saga (george miller, 2024)
Wednesday, June 05, 2024
It's the Chemotherapy Chronicles. Due to my wife's current spate of chemo sessions, Geezer Cinema has been a secondary concern. This was the first time in nearly a month that we had a Geezer movie, and almost two months since we'd been to a theater. Furiosa made for a fine return.
A narrative seems to be growing that Furiosa is a failure. It's not killing at the box office, but then, neither is anything else, and as I write this, it has already made $117 million at the box office in less than two weeks (of course, it needs to make a lot more over time to make a profit). I also sense that people are upset that it's not as good as Fury Road. Well, there aren't many movies as good as Fury Road, which is only one of the best action movies of all time. Sure, Fury Road had a better "Metascore" (90, indicating "Universal Acclaim", more than Furiosa's 79), but that says less about any failure on the part of Furiosa than about the greatness of its predecessor.
Of the five Mad Max movies, Furiosa may be the best at character development. This isn't entirely a good thing ... it's the longest Max movie at close to 2 1/2 hours, and the first hour is basically setup, where we learn about Furiosa's childhood. It's not without interest, not at all, but ultimately, we came for the action, and it takes its time arriving. Finally, after that hour, Anya Taylor-Joy takes over the part from Alyla Browne, who does a fine job as young Furiosa. And, as if to calm any concerns about whether Taylor-Joy can effectively take a part made so memorable by Charlize Theron, there is a 15-minute sequence that took 78 days to film, resulting in what may be the best action scene in the history of the franchise.
Fury Road, of course, is effectively one long action sequence. That George Miller maintained the edge-of-seat thrills throughout is one of many things that makes Fury Road an all-time classic. But down the road, I am convinced Furiosa will live as a solid part of the Max saga. If I were to rank the five films, I'd go Fury Road, Road Warrior, Furiosa, Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome, placing Furiosa right in the middle.
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