The Mad Max franchise has been going for 45 years as of 2024, and unlike other long-running IPs that have lost steam after decades, the previous latest entry, 2015’s Mad Max Fury Road, was widely regarded as not only the best in the franchise but also one of the best action movies of all time. After almost a decade since then, legendary director George Miller is following up with a prequel in the form of Furiosa A Mad Max Saga. Can it thrill us as much as Fury Road did, or will it be left in the dust?

Witness Us

Unlike 2015’s Mad Max Fury Road (the events of the movie took place over several days and in one unbroken flow), Furiosa A Mad Max Saga takes place over many years and is split into five chapters. Without spoiling the details, Furiosa A Mad Max Saga is essentially the origin story of Mad Max Fury Road’s Imperator Furiosa (who was previously played by Charlize Theron). What the trailers for Furiosa didn’t tell us is that the movie is divided into two halves; the first half stars a young Furiosa played by a young actress named Alyla Browne who’s brimming with potential while the second half focuses on the famous Anya Taylor-Joy as an older version of the character.

Instead of going all out on non-stop action at a breakneck pace like in Fury Road, Furiosa feels more like George Miller’s attempt at deeper worldbuilding and lore. Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of glorious action scenes in Furious, many of which still look like they were made with practical effects (though assisted by more CGI this time around). That being said, the premise and structure of Furiosa is very much like a revenge story, similar to the very first Mad Max movie from 1979. Despite having a simple plot, Furiosa A Mad Max Saga is a bit overstuffed at almost two hours and a half hours long. While George Miller manages to keep an incredibly engrossing pacing for most of the runtime, the pacing does suffer and feel slow in the middle, especially when the movie is transitioning between the younger and older Furiosa.

The highlight of Furiosa A Mad Max Saga is unsurprisingly, the action scenes, but more than that, it’s all the details and painstaking effort that went into making the world of the wasteland and the people who live in it feel REAL and IMMERSIVE. That’s the biggest achievement of this movie (alongside Fury Road). These include Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus and his Biker Horde; the little details like how Dementus rides a chariot but with three bikes attached instead of horses, and how the Biker Horde feels like the attacking Huns or the Orcs in The Lord Of The Rings. In fact, there are many scenes in Furiosa A Mad Max Saga that make it feel like it’s this epic medieval fantasy but set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. I’m not sure if that’s intentional but that’s definitely a question I would ask George Miller one day if I ever get the chance to interview him.

There’s also a ruggedness and awesome gritty vibe to the vehicles in Furiosa (most likely because they’re real and not CGI), and this is coming from a guy (yes, the writer of the review, me) who is not a motorhead or has any interest at all in anything that goes vroom. Still, the CGI is much more noticeable in Furiosa and is used a lot more than in Fury Road but that doesn’t detract from the thrilling action scenes that Furiosa still has to offer. Unfortunately, while there’s a lot to like in Furiosa A Mad Max Saga, there are still several flaws. Besides the aforementioned pacing problems, Chris Hemsworth’s antagonist Dementus is perhaps the weakest part of the entire movie. He just doesn’t feel convincingly menacing or threatening enough as a villain, even when he’s tearing people apart. Hemsworth can be funny at times but it feels like he’s channelling his MCU Thor energy and trying too hard to be funny.

To Valhalla

Overall, Furiosa A Mad Max Saga is a cinematic experience that’s worth checking out on the biggest IMAX screen you can find. Despite its flaws and ultimately not living up to the expectations of following up on 2015’s Mad Max Fury Road, it’s both epic and intimate. So far in 2024, there have only been a few must-watch movies at the cinema (including Dune Part Two, which was also from Warner Bros. Discovery), and Furiosa A Mad Max Saga is one of them.

FINAL SCORE: 80/100

We attended a press screening of Furiosa A Mad Max Saga courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery Malaysia. Furiosa A Mad Max Saga is now showing in Malaysian cinemas.