Mad Max Furiosa: “Instant Classic”, “Soulful”… Early Reviews Are Very Positive!

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga opens in theaters on May 22nd and will screen out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival on May 15th. But George Miller’s feature film, starring Anna Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth, has already had its world premiere in Australia and has been shown to the press. And the first return to the Fury Road prequel is pretty cool. This new film, with a record length of 2 hours 28, is dedicated to the youth of Furiosa, played by Anya Taylor-Joy (and Charlize Theron in the previous installment) and begins 15 years before the Tom Hardy-led film. In a decadent world, young Furiosa is torn from the green earth and captured by a horde of bikers led by the fearsome Dementus. As she tries to escape the desolation, the immortal Joe, and find her way home, Furiosa has only one obsession: revenge.

Furiosa also stars Tom Burke, Alila Brown, Couden Bales and John Howard, with Lachie Hulme reprising his role as Immortal Joe, and Nathan Jones and Angus Sampson reprising their roles as Rictus Erectus and Organ Mechanic previously seen in Fury Road.

What do early viewers think of this return to the devastated lands?

For Fandango’s Eric Davis:George Miller’s Furiosa is a powerful action film! A brutal, relentless epic that expands the history of Furiosa and the Wasteland, delivering the wildest chases, great characters and simply stunning cinematography.

Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth explore the wilderness and both deliver some incredible stuff. There is one War Rig sequence that blew me away – an instant classic. I love #MadMax movies and loved this one. Start your engines !”

A different beat from Fury Road

David Ehrlich from the site IndieWire Noting that the film is different from Mad Max: Fury Road, which came out in 2015, he notes that some people might not like it, which he doesn’t: “I am very happy to report that Furiosa is really, really good. The film has a very different pace to Fury Road (in a way that I suspect will disappoint some people), but it also manages to enrich that film even more while establishing its own legend in the wilderness.”

Bill Brea Slash movie writing: “Furiosa is the ultimate in mythmaking. The biggest part of the Mad Max saga goes back to the roots of the series: it’s a powerful, exciting and hard-hitting revenge story set in a wild world. And also: windsurfing bombers. Anya Taylor-Joy owns it, Hemsworth slays it !”

Actors at their best

To an Australian journalist from Nick’s Flicks: “Furiosa is epic in every sense of the word! The world-building and expansive mythology of the Mad Max universe is the thunderous heart of the film, which features explosive and thrilling action sequences. Taylor-Joy is great, but Hemsworth shines like never before!

For her part, Collider’s Teresa Lacson praises the work of Furiosa’s two young performers, but regrets that the film’s construction spoils the pacing.

“I could easily watch 15 hours of Anna Taylor Joy and Alila Brown as #Furiosa, but most of her film suffers from inconsistent pacing due to a segmented plot. This film doesn’t match the brilliance of Fury Road, but it doesn’t match what I need.”

For Simon Thompson, a journalist for Forbes, Variety and The Wrap, the film manages to be a great spectacle while maintaining some depth: “Jesus George Miller! Furiosa swallows. At times it seems almost bigger than an IMAX-format screen—it’s too big—and at other times deeply unsettlingly intimate. Echoing cinematic elements from the ’50s and ’80s, it’s a rich and intelligent vision that delights the cast.”