Furiosa is a must-watch for action film fans

Film review: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (15)

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Burke

Run time: Two hours, 28 minutes Director: George Miller

Furiosa is the latest entry in George Miller’s long long-running Mad Max franchise, specifically being a prequel to the 2015’s Fury Road. It follows the eponymous Furiosa through a traumatic childhood into a thrilling revenge story.

One of the first things you notice is Miller’s masterful world-building as the post-apocalyptic wasteland the film takes place in feels like it is a truly living, breathing place that one could step into at a moment’s notice.

This is only expanded on by the film’s direction and visual style with wide shots displaying the enormity and imposingness of certain locations within the film as well as the size of armies controlled by the film’s warlord.

In contrast to this are visual choices such as zoom-ins on actors creating a sense of speed during action films and some close-ups inciting discomfort and tension around the movie’s villains. The editing here is also very impressive as the visual style is extremely coherent and there is never a moment where the action is hard to follow, making it even more exciting.

On the topic of villains, Chris Hemsworth plays the main antagonist Dr Dementus and delivers an amazing performance throughout the runtime. Almost akin to Heath Ledger’s Joker, Hemsworth displays this almost childlike glee at certain things that brings some needed levity to the dystopian and depressing world.

But at other times he is very sinister, making him extremely unhinged and even more intimidating as you never know what his next move will be. The other performances and character writing also toe this line very well, creating an amazingly stylistic film that manages to stay believable without getting too bogged down in its seriousness.

At points, the plot may seem to meander slightly. Still, I think due to the focus on character here this doesn’t take anything away from it as we are left with extremely tense and even gut-wrenching character moments here, even when the direction of the plot may seem unclear, which overall is thematically appropriate for this world’s chaotic and barbaric wasteland.

As a whole this movie creates a cohesive experience seeped in style throughout with great characters and performances and is a must-watch for any fans of action films.

Rating: 9/10

By Alfie Ransome