“There always was, is, and shall be, war.”

Story: “45 years after the collapse” of civilization as we know it, Australia is little more than a vast wasteland of sand, and loss of hope. But there’s one piece of green – The Green Place. A young Furiosa and her sister Valkyrie live there in happiness, until one day raiders find their Eden, and Furiosa gets taken away. As the years pass, Furiosa tries to get back to the green, all the while lusting for revenge.

Genre I’d put it in: Well Executed Sequels That Should Have Been Shorter
Release Date: 2024
Remake, Sequel, Based-On, or Original: Based on the Mad Max film series, and follow up to Mad Max: Fury Road

Gotta say: Charlize Theron is the definitive Furiosa. She breathed life into the character, and owned that piece of Mad Max lore. That said, Anya Taylor-Joy’s take on the character is a quiet badass, biding her time until…well, I don’t think she entirely knows. Fueled by simmering rage and a longing for the past, this is the Furiosa whose actions blossom into the woman warrior we saw in Fury Road. And while riveting? It’s also a whole lot of storytelling that could have been condensed into a sharper, cleaner tale. Because honey. Honeeeeey. This movie could have been edited by machete. At over two an a half hours, it’s much too long, and the story suffers for it. Even with all the cool boom boom pow.

That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the extended world-building in Furiosa. Writers George Miller (who’s helmed the series since Mad Max 2) and Nick Lathouris (who’s written everything in the series except 2) glory in the places and people of the post-apocalypse, and these tidbits are definitely cool. However, Furiosa is a full half-hour longer than the two hour Road, and you’ll feel every second of that increased runtime. This is definitely a case of the writer/director being unable to see what they need to trim in order to make a film that folks can sit through in theaters without their bladders exploding. I applaud the idea of moviegoers getting their money’s worth in this economy, but in the past few years there have been way too many overlong films that are well crafted, but a slog. Getting to see this world and even more areas/characters/rivalries is nice, but after a while I really wanted to check my phone to see how much longer I’d be stuck in my seat. (But I turn off my phone when I’m in the theater. I’m not a monster. I mean, not about that, anyway.)

As always, this installment of the series brings it’s visual A-Game. Cinematography, set design, costuming, art direction…it’s all top-notch. (To be fair, I’ve been crazy in love with Colin Gibson’s glorious art direction and production design since The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert.) Together, these crews bring the various areas of the Wasteland to gloriously horrible life. There’s a moment during the infamous “40 Days War” that I’ll be pausing to really drink in, once this film hits streaming. The detail is outrageously amazing. The gore is…well, for the weaker stomachs among you, it might be really horrifying, but I was surprised at the overall lack of the red stuff. Especially as this is an R-rated film. (Note: this weird writer watched The Green Inferno and though “Huh. That’s cool.” So consider the source.) There are lots of deaths, murders, and various moments of bloodletting, but the blood and viscera rarely make it onscreen. It’s mostly in wide-shot, with little of the impact hitting your eyeballs. You will get a very good look at how Furiosa lost her forearm though. Fair warning and all that.

As with Anya Taylor-Joy, the entire cast does excellent work here. Chris Hemsworth shows more of his range as the warlord Dementus. The warlord’s outlook becomes grimmer and bloodier as his power grows, and after awhile the character’s reliance on charisma and obvious lack of real leadership takes its toll. It’s an intriguing character arc, but while this film is much too long, this character gets little notice beyond action, action, action. Alyla Brown as Young Furiosa carries the first half of the film, and does an amazing job. Brown’s ability to project emotion while sitting still is a talent many others would kill for. Special shout-out to George Shevtsov as The History Man, a kind of Cassandra character who’s kept by Dementus. The History Man is used as a kind of human history encyclopedia, but never truly listened to, and Shevtsov portrays the character as one who can easily see doom on the horizon.

That doom is an absolute treat for anyone who’s into bombastic action sequences. There’s a whole lot of incredible moments in Furiosa, but the climactic scene harks back to Road‘s almost operatic brilliance when it comes to stunt work, pyrotechnics, and the haunting balletic brutality of war. While I was absolutely gobsmacked by the brilliance onscreen, I was also excited by the possibility of this story finally wrapping up. And nobody should feel like that during a movie. FWIW, if you’re up for an end-credits scene, it’s mostly a love letter to Road, with bits in-between various credits that tell you almost the entire story Max and company. All the better to gear up for Mad Max: The Wasteland? Perhaps. But for now, head to the theater to see this on the largest screen you’re able to find, if you can either avoid liquids immediately before and all throughout the film, or can justify popping out for a quick bit during one of the many, many action moments that run so long you’ll miss nothing but a bit of the ol’ ultraviolence.

#Protip: Don’t bother with DBox here; there isn’t enough roller coaster moments (at least in terms of seat shaking) to warrant the extra expense. Plus, with the deep bass in the score during action-y moments? Your regular seats will probably vibe a bit on their own. Took this bullet for y’all.