Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) .....we'll now attempt to answer the question that 5,000 Hollywood pundits and film bloggers weighed in on....
How did this tank at the box office? Why did George Miller's new epic entry into his 'Mad Max' loony-verse get shuffled off to streaming already?
It's every bit as visually stunning and violently propulsive as 2015's 'Mad Max: Fury Road'. That one featured Tom Hardy as Max and Charlize Theron as the fiercer than fierce fellow road warrior Furiosa.
......and this new film was far more ambitious in its storytelling, a revenge fueled 'hero's journey' construction taking Furiosa from her dire childhood to her equally fraught life as a young woman.
Even better, it had BQ's fabulous fave, Anya Taylor-Joy. Given little dialogue to work with, she could still command the screen with those arresting huge eyes that compel us to never take our eyes off her........and we didn't.
Yet the crowds stayed away. How come?
Possibly repetition. By now, several generations are familiar with the apocalyptic visions of the Mad Max films. Global war, leading to famine, anarchy and the collapse of civilization. Planet Earth reduced to deserts and the remaining populace, ruled by psychotic tyrants, reduced to biker-gang warfare in their souped-up, improvised motorcycles, tanks and armored dune buggies.
.....with all these elements invariably ending up in a beyond brutal, punishing take-no-prisoners motorized chase across the flat dead landscapes. In these sequences, director Miller has no equals in orchestrating 100 mile-an-hour mayhem. It's the closest a film audience can get to mainlining adrenalin while comfortably parked in their reclining multi-plex seats with a bucket of buttered popcorn.
But this time, the popcorn'd masses, who turned out in force for "Dune" and "Dune 2", weren't havin' any....
The 2 and 1/2 hour length, maybe? The 'Dune's were that long and so was 'Kingdom Of The Planet' of the Apes'. While BQ is no fan of these bloated running times, we still thought 'Furiosa' was far more watchable than any of those films.
So call us crazy, but we'd rather gaze upon the wondrous Anya Taylor-Joy then all those CGI apes and Timothee Chalamet astride a giant worm.......
There's no getting around the fact that 'Furiosa's mythic structure takes a long time to unfold. And the telling of that tale, for the first time in a Mad Max movie, puts the brakes on the saga's usual mile-a-minute pacing. The film's designed to leave a view impressed and moved ....but not as breathless and goggle-eyed as the previous chapters.
We deeply appreciated George Miller bringing a dramatic gravitas to his saga, even if it meant slowing it down a bit......and he couldn't have picked a more charismatic actress to bring young Furiosa to life than ATJ.
Our strong advice.......before it's kicked out of theaters altogether, don't miss the chance to experience the film on a big wide screen with the sound cranked up to tooth-loosening levels.
To hell with the box-office numbers.....we furiously, Anya Taylor enJoy'd "Furiosa". 4 & 1/2 stars (****1/2).
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