Mad genius director/co-writer George Miller takes us for a 5th adventure ride in his fictional post-apocalyptic wasteland with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. This is the origin story of Imperator Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy), the protagonist of the previous film, Fury Road. We learn how she came to be subject to Lord of The Citadel Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), leader of the fanatical War Boys.
The cinematic setting dates back to the original Mad Max, a 1979 low-budget, cheap thrills, drive-in movie. For anyone unfamiliar with the Mad Max films, the details of the characters and the world won’t make a lot of sense at first, but the context comes into focus quickly as Furiosa starts with a brief introduction. Gasoline is in very short supply and has been since the world was broken, but internal combustion engine vehicles are still the best way to cross the vast expanses of the desert. Life in the wasteland centers on drilling oil, refining petrol, finding water, and keeping the vehicles running. Fuel is power, and there is always the risk of an attack on production facilities in a lawless land. War is a persistent state.
In this blighted world, Furiosa is a young girl living in a rare verdant zone in the desert (the Australian outback). The people of the Green Place are pastoral. They grow vegetables and ride horses. One day, Furiosa is caught by raiders and spirited away to a warlord named Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), a psychopath with a sense of humor. He’s a witty villain. Furiosa’s mother, Mary, tracks her daughter, but neither of them escapes the raiders.
“…Furiosa is caught by raiders and spirited away to a warlord named Dementus …”
As part of a peace deal, Furiosa is traded as a bargaining chip between Dementus and Immortan Joe. Joe imprisons her with his collection of breeding stock “wives,” but Furiosa slips away and disguises herself as a boy, then becomes a worker at the Citadel.
Furiosa is forged by the chaos and tragedy of her life. She lost her mother, her family, and her beautiful green home and then went to work for Immortan Joe in order to survive. She becomes hard as steel, and sets her sights on returning back to the place where she was raised. A man named Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), who drives a battle-ready “War Rig,” sees her potential and befriends her. Together, they begin laying plans to escape the Citadel. The viewers will hang on the edge of their seats to see if Jack and Furiosa can make it out alive, giving the slip to Immortan Joe and Dementus and finding a life where they can ride eternal, shiny, and chrome. This film has a lot of moving parts. Hence the episodic “saga” structure.
"…the origin story of Imperator Furiosa..."
