ADMR – Even with all the awesome chaos, Furiosa is Fury so-so – 3/5

Furiosa: In the beginning…

The Average Dude remembers the before-time when cell phones only existed on Star Trek, HBO was the only movie channel (and didn’t give you any choices), and people thought that home computers would happen after flying cars. In the midst of that unimaginable era there came a little indie flick called Mad Max. It starred a dude named Mel Gibson. He was, for most of us, our introduction to the land down undah. At least until Crocodile Dundee came out.

As average dudes, we love Mad Max. We SO wanted to be a muscle car driving bad @$$ with an accent that could drop undies at a convent. Mad Max was the tortured hero for the early 80s that average dudies fantasized about and average dudes admired. Galvanized by the tragic loss of his family, Max went from a clean-cut law officer to a rogue cop…the good guy bad boy of the law. The broken heart of Max further appealed to the ladies and the Dirty Harry from Down Undah had us dudes saying ‘Ef yeah! That would be me!’

And then…the inevitable remake

Cut scene to 30 years later, and Hollywood gives us a new Max for a new generation (actually, I think that would be two generations). Tom Hardy, an awesome actor, reprises the role of Mad Max. Or maybe it’s his spirit, because it’s not super-clear if he’s supposed to be the SAME Max. But let’s move on.

Mad Max Fury Road was a really good watch, It had the most amazing high-speed action I’ve ever seen in a movie. Nothing before or since comes close. Adding a psycho-punk flamethrowing dual guitar playing warboy on bungee chords was absolutely brilliant. I need a picture of this guy for the mancave. Preferably autographed. Ef, yeah.

And even though I have a great debate with my bestie on Fury Road’s nomination for Best Picture (I say Nay), it was still a worthy watch. Not quite on the annual rewatch list but close. Hardy’s Mad Max was an indominable bad @$$ and all. But there are two actual generations between the originals and the new. Thus the new audiences are not emotionally connected to the history, there’s very little reason to become invested in the character.

Furiosa was an odd direction for the franchise to take

And that brings us to Furiosa, a Mad Max saga. Furiosa is a prequel to Fury Road and is the story of the Furiosa (duh) played by Anya Taylor-Joy. Clearly, adding ‘a Mad Max saga’ to the title is just a way of piggy-backing on the brand and making Furiosa more than just another butt-kicking solo-chick that has been schlepped out to audiences ad nauseum for a while now.

Yes, these are characters from the Mad Max saga. Same blasted hellscape. But not a trace of Max. Will Tom Hardy show up in future Furiosa prequel/sequels? No clue. If so, it seems an odd choice to shoot the prequel before Tom Hardy even gets a chance to re-establish the Mad Max character. To this point in the reboot, Furiosa has more actual screen time than Mad Max.

Was she chosen because she has big eyes?

Which brings me to another point: Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa is a very talented actress. Not a lot of quality credits to her name yet, but her turn in The Queen’s Gambit was impressive. She’s got a lot of cred in Hollywood right now as an up and comer. So I get signing her to a big name movie with one of the biggest stars in the cosmos (Chris Hemsworth in an amazing false nose) is a great career move.

The down-side is that Furiosa was written as the ultimate stoic little girlboss growing up to be a stoic young womanboss. Other than having a soul-scorching stare, she wasn’t really called upon to do much…you know, acting. An estimated count puts her at about 30 lines total. As I recall, a couple of those were ‘I AM FURIOSA!’ and ‘No.’ Not the Independence Day pre-dawn speech but that stare was pretty feral. How did her parents know she would grow to be so furious when then named her? No clue.

Thor is more

Okay, so even though Furiosa is a high octane action flick, there still needs to be some characters to fill in the places between car battles. That burden falls upon Chris Hemsworth as Dementus, who has some lines that are more articulate than you will hear in the average conversation today. An amazing vocabulary given that there hasn’t been an education system in generations. It was cool to see the greater Hemsworth in a role that didn’t sound like old English. Forsooth.

So, does the Average Dude recommend? I do. I loved the characters of Dementus and Immortan Joe (the villain from Fury Road). And even though the hot car-on-car action wasn’t up to the gold standard of Fury Road, Furiosa still gave what we crave…auto carnage. And while there were moments, the whole was not all that memorable. It was an adequate popcorn pusher that was probably 30 minutes too long. And with all due respect to the Critical Drinker, I did not find that Anya Taylor-Joy gave a particularly ‘great performance’. How could she, with only 30 stumpy lines?

And at the risk of beating a dead horse

If you’ve read my reviews in the past, you already know of my utter disdain of the black-screen ‘Five Years Later’ type scene change notices that take you completely out of the movie. What’s wrong with the classic fade out or fade to black? But maybe that’s just me.

And just for laughs…the character names are fantastic! Dementus. Immortan Joe. Rictus Erectus. Organic Mechanic. People Eater. Mr. Harley. Mr. Davidson. Scrotus. Ef, yeah.

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