Summary

• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga showcased a revenge story with epic biker action sequences, reminiscent of The Godfather's drama and scale.
• The film failed to deliver comprehensive character development, despite the potential of exploring Furiosa's origin story and building a lifelong revenge arc.
• Furiosa missed the mark by not fully committing to its own unique path, resulting in a missed opportunity for a truly original and emotionally resonant story.

George Miller’s 2024 Furiosa’s box office performance was disappointing considering the popularity of the franchise and the success of Mad Max: Fury Road. It was hard for cinema to recover after COVID-19 destroyed attendance, and the rise of streaming as a competitor platform probably didn’t help. Nonetheless, Mad Max creators Miller and Byron Kennedy could learn from Furiosa’s errors, as could the rest of Hollywood.

Furiosa was set just before Mad Max: Fury Road in the Mad Max timeline, offering a prequel exploring Anya Taylor-Joy’s irrepressible Furiosa. This spinoff was the first movie in the franchise not to focus on Max Rockatansky, the franchise’s famous antihero. Instead, the movie provided an origin story for Charlize Theron’s Furiosa, who appeared in the previous movie. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’s interesting premise had potential. However, among other issues, the movie failed to deliver comprehensive character development, despite its myriad achievements.

Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold In Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

The Decade-Spanning Revenge Saga Worked Well As A Biker Movie

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga was unambiguously a revenge flick with incredible biker action sequences, and in these regards, it did what it said on the tin. The movie created a truly epic sense of time and scale that was reminiscent of the profound revenge drama The Godfather. This paid dividends both in the fantasy department, as far as it enabled painstaking world-building, and in the drama department, attaching the audience to Furiosa’s fortune and building up a lifelong revenge arc.

Praetorian Jack’s Cranky Black was emblematic of the romance of the road and the freedom of a bygone era.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is notable as a biker movie alone. This high-budget spectacle of outrageous vehicles was a love note to a low-budget genre of movies popular in the ‘50s and ‘60s that riffed off Marlon Brando’s rebel biker in The Wild One and the media notoriety of the Hells Angels. In Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Hollywood did Top Gear but made it post-apocalyptic, crystallizing what was always great about Mad Max into its deepest respect for cars and bikes yet. Praetorian Jack’s Cranky Black was emblematic of the romance of the road and the freedom of a bygone era.

Furiosa And Dementus Had Depth But The Screenplay Failed Them

Anya Taylor-Joy And Chris Hemsworth Shone But The Script Was Lacking

Anya Taylor-Joy is one of the most exciting actresses around, and her Furiosa proved it, while Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus was multifaceted, but both appeared inconsistent. Furiosa was a female empowerment story that sidestepped the problems with the comics, avoiding the objectification that seemed to pervade it. Furiosa had a genderless style that was fashion-forward, current, and refreshing in a sea of conventionally attractive heroines. She recalled Natalie Portman’s iconic turn in V for Vendetta, pulling off style and substance in a hard balance to nail commercially. Furiosa built her up to be strong, stoic, and singular in a cruel world, so her psychopathic revenge felt abrupt and unearned.

Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus should be celebrated - his complex portrayal hit all the villain notes wherever it could. But the movie glorified Dementus. He had the build of Hercules, a flawless beard, and he emerged messianically from the smoke of the red flare, fearless and gleeful. This hit audiences on the head with “red flag” and “danger” symbolism, but Dementus actually just looked awesome. And then he looked like he’d had a trendy red dye job at the hair salon, and went on to look even cooler.

Furiosa, in choosing to torture him horribly, proved that Dementus was right when he said that they were alike.

Dementus had a lust for life, childlike innocence, and a (dark) sense of humor, and in a bleak world, that’s real strength. No matter how demented he was stylized as, he seemed brave underneath it all. Dementus was meant to be a foil for Furiosa and Max. But Furiosa, in choosing to torture him horribly, proved that Dementus was right when he said that they were alike. Killing him kindly would’ve been merciful compared to what she put him through. The peach growing out of Dementus was meant to symbolize hope, but the jarring incongruence of Furiosa’s sadism damaged that.

The audience was not supposed to be sure what Furiosa actually did to Dementus. The History Man’s narration painted Dementus the tree as hypothetical, offering alternatives like Furiosa shooting him. Furiosa giving Dementus back his bear and turning him around, then shooting him in the back of the head - that would have felt right for these characters. That small degree of mercy would have made Furiosa seem mature and capable of leading the wives to safety, and would have made Dementus’ death tragic. But the movie clearly led audiences to believe that Dementus ended his life as a tree.

Furiosa Should Have Either Followed The Comic Or Carved Its Own Path

The Movie Should Have Gone Even Further In Its Departure From The Comic

Had the movie chosen to simply adapt the comic, refining its content to be more sensitive, perhaps it could have avoided its problems. The gruesome Furiosa prequel comic treated sexual assault with blunt-force insensitivity, and Furiosa was right not to translate that for the big screen. Instead, Furiosa chose to follow its own path. If it had committed to this completely, that would have made for far better storytelling. But it seemed like it cherry-picked tonally and thematically from the comic. Perhaps this was behind its inconsistent characterization.

Dementus’ attachment to the teddy bear and choice to wear it like an accessory would’ve been haunting if just a touch of sexual perversity was added somehow. This would have been powerfully evocative, calling back the abusive villains of the comic, and yet dealing with the subject matter far more sensitively and eloquently. This would have made him feel slightly more deserving of his fate. But it wasn’t repulsive, it was eccentric, charming, endearing, and sad. Dementus’ speech to Furiosa about revenge constituted the wisest words spoken in the whole movie.

Dementus was subtly coded as a likable hero when he was obviously meant to be a villain...

The movie created pathos for Dementus and offered no closure, ending him grotesquely. It also created iration for Furiosa but confused this by suggesting her sadistic cruelty, equal to that of those she fought. Minutiae of each character’s successes and failures aside, ultimately, the situation is this. Dementus was subtly coded as a likable hero when he was obviously meant to be a villain, and Furiosa missed all the marks when she was obviously meant to be a protagonist. Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa was brilliant but fell at the last hurdle by creatively torturing someone, and this misstep confused the whole character.

Furiosa’s Goals Only Had To Be Slightly More Complex To Make This A Truly Original Story

The Movie Only Needed Small Tweaks To Be Perfect

Furiosa only had to show slightly more complexity and mercy to make the story credible and poignant. But to be original, the movie could have cast off the shackles of a tired, predictable revenge story and served a forgiveness twist. The movie could have followed the scenes of Dementus as a tree and tied to the wooden cross with a scene of him weeping in a cell, finally coming to with his fall from grace. The History Man could have presented the reality as unknown while leading audiences to believe that this final, lingering, redemptive shot showed the truth.

Morals aren’t what is missing from Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Revenge stories are allowed to justify killing. Emotional payoff is what is missing. The movie was successful in creating emotional connection between the audience and its characters, only to whip it away. This could’ve been pleasantly subversive, but there were no surprises here. Furiosa slipped into a hyper-violent comic-book stereotype, and Dementus died as the revenge narrative had suggested he would. As such, that emotional intimacy just dissipated, leaving not emotional resonance or surprise, but indifference. And as such, Furiosa was a missed opportunity.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga could’ve been the best Mad Max movie and unique. But instead, it was just very good. Furiosa bombed at the box office, and, sadly, pioneering content wouldn’t necessarily have saved it - but it might have. There’s life left in the revenge genre, but it must be complicated. Cinema is meant to teach people something new about themselves. That doesn’t mean in-your-face social commentary, it just means moving the dialogue on somewhat from the same old thing. This is a lesson that future Mad Max movies, and Hollywood in general, would do well to learn.