RIOTUS

Some movies are just too big for one person. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, is one such movie. In the case of George Miller’s new epic, two savvy wasteland warriors of RIOTUS — Julian Lytle and William Goodman — are teaming together to talk about the new release.

William Goodman: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is all about expectations. While writer/director George Miller released Three Thousand Years of Longing in the years between Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa, based on the returns for that film, a lot of casual theater-goers are bound to think this is the first project to come out since Fury Road. Not to mention the weighty legacy Fury Road now carries as one of the best movies of the last decade and one of the best action films ever. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, you know? I think we try our best not to let expectations sway us one way or another coming into these kinds of movies, but it is hard with this particular installment, given the fact it’s a direct prequel to Fury Road. There’s a big shadow here. I guess this is a long-winded way of saying, how did you feel about Fury Road, and how did you feel about the idea of Furiosa coming into it?

Julian Lytle: Hmmm, with Mad Max, it is an interesting franchise for me since I grew up watching these films, and then they just faded into the ether. Like a distant memory of the parallel world, and then, much like Planet of the Apes in the 2010s, something came along and smacked back into relevancy. I never expected Fury Road, and I had zero expectations for that. The action and perfect execution of the story of that film wowed me. It was a film that didn’t reference another type of action cinema; it was whole cloth, Miller’s language. So, did I have expectations? I had mainly trust in Miller at this point with telling his story in the world he’s made for the last 40-plus years. I am interested in the idea of expanding the world beyond just Max. Now, my only concern was Anya Taylor-Joy replacing Charlize Theron. 

WG: I was definitely excited to see ATJ jump into a project with someone of Miller’s caliber; as one of our best young performers, she’s already had such an interesting path and absolutely disappears into the roles she takes. Having her jump into Theron’s shoes felt like a coronation of sorts, officially signaling a new stage of her career. 

I think we should take a second to set the stage. Furiosa is, as we mentioned, a direct prequel to Fury Road that follows a young, well, Furiosa from childhood into adulthood as she experiences life in the brutal wasteland. Along her journey, she’ll come across key characters from Fury Road — yes, Immortan Joe and crew are all here — along with new faces, mostly in the form of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Without giving too much away, the film is both a sprawling epic and revenge story, executed with Miller’s uniquely masterful sensibilities. 

Fury Road this is not, however. And I think that’s going to polarize some folks. Before we dig into the performances, what did you think of the film?

JL: Furiosa was overwhelming from the beginning; that was all-encompassing for me. It felt thrilling to see how it’s structured like a fantasy epic in an apocalyptic future. While familiar to Fury Road, the visual choices feel more structured to tell a more complicated tale. At times, the closest comparison I have to this is reading a Jack Kirby comic from the 1970s, as there are things that are wild and visuals so bombastic that it can overshadow or even make the story feel less deliberate and not as worried about the themes, messages and “plot” as some would like. In essence, this is my type of hype. If people are expecting just Fury Road again, they will be disappointed, and as you saw last night from some of our local peers, this film might turn some people off even though they can’t explain why it does. I prefer showing and not telling as much as others, and this film does have a lot of things just happening, but I know that’s something I enjoy that seems to be going out of favor in modernity. 

WG: Structurally, I feel like Miller almost wanted to take all the action moments from Fury Road and turn them into quiet moments in Furiosa and vice versa. This movie is far closer to a 70s-style character study than it is to the bombastic sound and fury of Fury Road. Miller, smartly, realized you can’t just run back the same movie, like you said, instead, making something totally different. It almost makes you appreciate the action moments more when they arrive.

To your point about the visuals, it feels like Miller introduces some new incredible thing to look at every ten minutes or so, most impressively so in a mid-movie action sequence that stands equally alongside anything in Fury Road. It was fun to see you practically jump out of your seat at a few of the beats in this sequence, which felt breathtaking. 

But the quiet moments are equally as compelling, which is where I think Anya Taylor-Joy excels. There was some discourse around her recent New York Times profile where she spoke about how difficult this shoot was for her — specifically on an emotional level — but the tribulations of that work pay off in spades here. There’s such a depth of reactions that she’s able to convey with just her face, and specifically her eyes. There’s not a mystery to what she’s trying to communicate, but the depth and breadth of the colors she uses to paint with (so to speak) is captivating. I’m keen to see it again just to see that continued nuance. 

While I do want to give you some space to talk about her performance, you had a very insightful and savvy take on what Hemsworth is doing here that I’d love for you to dig into.

JL: Ahhh, good old Thor, man, oh man, it’s good to see him get to stretch those acting chops here. What I saw on just a visual level is Miller actively playing with his on-screen persona. Like how I just call him Thor all the time. Miller works with that as his character Dementus has the cape (made out of a parachute, no less), the warrior getup, and even a chariot to carry him into battle, but he’s twisted like a dark troll under the bridge version. His dirty, manicured facial hair and a weird fake nose. His cowardly body language and treacherous nature. He’s a spineless trickster and one of the best I’ve seen on screen in a long time. Yet what makes it work the best is the voice he uses in this; he sounds just like Jemaine Clement back when he was on Flight of the Conchords TV series on HBO. It’s surprising to hear this type of voice come from Helmsworth, and it’s offputting, which adds to the sad tragicness of Dementus while also making his quirky jokes pop even more. It’s the whole mix of these traits with the sprinkled backstory of a man who lost everything on the wasteland that, for me, pushes Dementus as my favorite Mad Max villain, and I hope something that shines a different light on Helmsworth as we’ve just gotten so used to him being an MCU hero. 

WG: Your point about him being a great villain is well-taken; as much as I love Fury Road, Immortan Joe is thinly drawn. Dementus, however, has a lot of depth to him and is able to conjure some empathy. He reminds me a lot of Charles Manson in his appearance, but that’s immediately undercut by the way Hemsworth pitches his vocals. Not since Bad Times at the El Royale have I felt he was this good in something non-Marvel related. 

Is there any part of Furiosa that doesn’t work for you? I will say there’s some CGI sheen in a setpiece towards the end that I wish had either had more budget put towards it or more time to bake before rolling it out. It’s a minor quibble — but I think that stands out against all the other handcrafted polishes in the film in a slightly jarring way. 

JL: I’m struggling to find anything that bothered me. I was so engrossed with everything going on, from the visuals to the sound. I think I need to see it a few more times to even totally understand what I was watching. Maybe the last five minutes or so could’ve been more explicit with time passage, but again, like earlier, this is like a Fantasy Epic, and those stories never have hard canonical timelines of events. 

WG: Without a doubt, Furiosa is another triumph from George Miller, one that proves even if he’s returning to the same painting, he can shade it in with different hues and find something exciting, bold, and fresh in the process.