Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga review: Chris Hemsworth is a delight to watch in this exhausting thriller

Even though filmmaker George Miller has been making the Max Max films since 1981, it is his 2015 version, Mad Max: Fury Road, that has stayed on with an entire generation and changed the way we perceive dystopian action thrillers. Miller revamped or reinvented the franchise remarkably in 2015 and Fury Road became one of the greatest action films made in the last decade or so. Naturally, when the maker announced a prequel of the film, an origin story of Imperator Furiosa, expectations were high. Anya Taylor-Joy's casting as the lead in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, just piqued everyone's curiosity. But is the film as engaging and exhilarating as the 2015 outing? Does it give you the same adrenaline rush as the sequel did? Here's what I thought.

The plot of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Anya Taylor-Joy and Alyla Browne play the younger version of Furiosa - a character that was made memorable by Charlize Theron in the 2015 version of the film. Miller along with writer Nico Lathouris keeps the premise similar to previous films of the franchise but the story is set in different periods as it charts the journey of Furiosa in a dystopian wasteland of Australia where warlords Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) and Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) rule.

Born in Green Place of Many Mothers, Furiosa is abducted by Dementus, the warlord of the Biker Horde at a young age but later traded off to Immortan Joe in exchange for control over The Bullet Farm. Immortan Joe, the leader of the Citadel takes her in as a breeder but Furiosa quickly adapts to the place she is in and eventually gets the job of transporting food and fuel between the wasteland's three population centres, The Citadel, Gas Town, and The Bullet Farm. She also finds a mentor in Jack, played by Tom Burke who trains her to be a road warrior.

Allalong Furiosa harbours resentment for Dementus and seeks revenge. So much so that she is ready to fight alongside the war boys of the Citadel and use Immortan Joe's might to reach Dementus. How she fulfills her goal and subsequently plans the escape of Joe's breeder (shown in Mad Max: Fury Road) forms the rest of the story.

The performances

The narrative is divided into multiple chapters, each dedicatedly showing how Furiosa comes into being. Anya Taylor Joy may have been pictured as the star of the film, but she appears only an hour into the film. Young star Alyla Browne does an incredible job at playing the young Furiosa who expresses angst through her eyes and is quick on her heels - letting her actions speak much more than words. Taylor-Joy too gets limited lines to speak- owing to the nature of the character she plays. Instead, her big blue eyes stand out, even when she is smeared with sand or oil- it's the eyes that glare at you.
It's a meditative performance and Anya Taylor Joy plays her part well. Restraint, ridden with angst but one can't help but think of Charlize Theron who with her stellar act had made Furiosa iconic. Theron's Furiosa is more assured, slightly haggard with all that she had experienced and witnessed in life while Taylor-Joy's Furiosa is more restless, keen to seek revenge.

Considering the film is divided into chapters, each highlighting the causes that led to Furiosa's rise in Citadel, the film's action sequences are reserved for the second half of the film. Sure the usual elements of the Mad Max franchise are there- the chase sequences, the endless journeys through sand dunes and wastelands, the huge vehicles/trucks, the gore- but it is spaced out through the course of the film, through different timelines.Simon Duggan's cinematography is stunning and brings out Miller's grand vision on the screen well.

The film's exciting bits come whenever Chris Hemsworth is on screen. Hemsworth seems to enjoy playing the barbaric, comical, theatrical Dementus. With false nose and teeth, and an Australian drawl and nasal voice, Hemsworth's act is a delight to watch. He is sinister in his ways yet you want to keep watching him. I wish they do a spin-off on Dementus in the near future. That would make for an exciting watch.

But Hemsworth performance is the only enjoyable bit of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. It is exhausting with multiple chapters, takes a long time to establish the film's protagonist's story, doesn't even feature Max Rockatansky (played by Mel Gibson, Tom Hardy) the anti-hero and protagonist of the franchise, and misses the adrenaline kick that 2015 very ably had managed to give to the viewers. It isn't a bad film at all, but perhaps the 2015 film set the bar high and it looms large onFuriosa: A Mad Max Saga throughout.