Furiosa review: finally, a prequel that's truly essential

The tone: Once upon a time there was a guy named Max who was pretty angry (maybe because he lives in an apocalyptic wasteland), who got caught up in a desperate quest to help five young women escape from the cruel Immortan Joe. The mastermind behind that escape was a badass named Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy), but was she always a badass? Thanks to Furiosa: A Mad Max SagaThe answer can be confirmed: absolutely yes.

However, being tough didn't make his path through life any easier. As a child, Furiosa quickly learns to survive the Wilder elements of the Wasteland, including the insane Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), a gang leader who challenges the ruling lords for a chance at real power. As an adult, Ella Furiosa realizes that maybe there is something better than surviving: escaping to the green place. All she needs is a plan and some hope.

Hope is a mistake: Hollywood's obsession with prequels these days has gotten a little tiring in recent years. But the important thing to keep in mind when entering furiousis that the story it tells was conceived at the same time that writer-director George Miller and co-writer Nick Lathouris were concocting the 2015 film. Mad Max: Fury Road.

This isn't an example of a group of writers applying for an open writing assignment about how Furiosa lost her arm; Miller told reporters before a press screening that because path of fury takes place in such a short period of time, “in order to tell it coherently, we had to know everything that happened in the previous time. So we wrote Furiosa's story from when she was taken when she was a child, as she refers in path of fury, until she became Imperator Furiosa. And this ended up being a complete script with concept art and everything: the actors, the designers and the whole crew got the script from [Furiosa] before shooting [Fury Road]. It was the only way we could have done it. path of furyotherwise it would not have been cohesive.”

Of many ways, furious isn't immune to the prequel's inherent tropes: for starters, you find out how he lost his arm, and the film eventually collides with the events of path of fury. However, because its development was simultaneous with the first film, he feels much more connected to it, perhaps even essential. And in the hectic desert that is cinema in the year 2024, a prequel that doesn't feel like a blatant effort to exploit corporate intellectual property is truly special.

I live, I die, I live again: In a recent interview, Miller confirmed that Furiosa's character has only 30 lines of dialogue and, in the context of the film, that spare approach works very well for two reasons: Miller is such a masterful visual storyteller that you don't really need too much, and also the actresses who play Furiosa of different ages are incredibly expressive performers and say a lot with just one look.