Furiosa – I liked it but there are some caveats

Furiosa didn’t do well at the box office and there are some good reasons for this which I will get to, but as a standalone film I found it enjoyable if a little long.

Let’s start with those caveats.

Furiosa is a prequel to Fury Road and doesn’t have Mad Max in it, or more correctly not for more than a moment. There is a figure seen in the distance which would appear to be him, but for a film derived from the Mad Max franchise this absence has confused and irritated fans. Then there is the fact that it is a prequel which from a narrative perspective is always unsatisfying because you already know what becomes of at least some of the characters.

But the main problem is the lack of internal plausibility which was an issue for me with Fury Road. Mad Max 2 was a masterpiece and part of what made it so strong was that the characters and vehicles might have been surreal but they were somewhat plausible. So too was their means of existence.

In Furiosa we have a vast army of bikers apparently meant to be about 1000 strong who survive from scavenging the wasteland, but there is zero evidence of how they do this. There are no small cities with abandoned supermarkets, warehouses or whatever that could possibly supply thousands of litres of water a day, food, fuel and so forth. Unlike in MM2 there is also no evidence of them pillaging convoys on the roads.

(Speaking of which the roads in the post apocalyptic future are better than in present day SW Victoria)

Then there is Immorten Joe’s fortress with its fairly sophisticated mechanical infrastructure. Given he was a senior officer in the Australian Army when civilisation collapsed the timeline doesn’t seem to make sense, namely there is not enough time to establish a cult like religion, and build back to this extent, and yet still be alive in Fury Road. The ‘war rig’ is also ridiculous – far too mechanically complex, far too well built, and the vast embossed metal mural down its side is too challenging for the available technology.......I could go on. Okay one more......tyres. Where do they get these amazing sets of truck tyres? Somewhere there is a warehouse full of a vast range of pristine tyres.

Good sci-fi and fantasy immerses you in a world of inner plausibility and a problem for both Fury Road and Furiosa is there is plenty of ridiculous stuff that detracts from full immersion. When you stop asking the obvious questions it becomes a lot more fun. There were people saying it failed because they are sick of the ‘girl-boss’ characters that have featured in so many films in recent years – entitled Mary Sue’s that never face any threat they can’t easily overcome. But that doesn’t hold with this film. Furiosa embodies the classic heroic narrative arc – she faces terrible adversity and personal duress and although we know she must survive because she is in Fury Road, we don’t know how she survived from girlhood in such a hostile world and how she lost her arm, which turns out to be pretty brutal and testimony to her resilience.

I found myself liking her character and gradually accepting all the absurdities like how she somehow builds herself a mechanical arm that seems to have some bionic attributes.......with just her remaining functioning arm.......er........and I enjoyed Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus with his Aussie accent, fake nose and delusional megalomania. His character engages because he isn’t a one dimensional villain – there is a mixture of vulnerability, intelligence and brutality to him and I enjoyed his scenes very much.

What I especially liked was the ending. There was a time when films would leave you with something to speculate over. The current trend is to tediously over explain everything, but Furiosa provides four alternatives and although this is a little contrived at least the viewer can form conclusions based upon their own reading of what her strongest connections and motivations might have been, and one of them is quite surreal with a touch of magic realism.

Far from being a Mary Sue Furiosa faces many stern tests and displays resilience, ingenuity and draws upon a bit of ridiculous to survive. It is a tad long and the editing could have been tightened up here and there, but as a standalone film I enjoyed it.