The Mad Max saga has shaped the modern world, for better or for worse, and one can hardly complain about the domination of the ultra-violent, hyper-aggressive, and sadistic system that guides the franchise. With Anya Taylor-Joyʼs Furiosa now on the way, there is nothing to salvage in the Wasteland, other than perhaps the lingering love and joy of the audience for the franchise.
Mad Max Finds a Worthy Successor in Anya Taylor-Joy
In 2015, the dull modern cinematic landscape was defibrillated into a state of awareness after Tom Hardy unleashed chaos onto the screens with his Mad Max saga. With a troubled production that rivals even the most horrifying behind-the-scene stories, Fury Road went on to stand out in the festival circuit and later became an Oscar contender, taking home six out of the ten nominations.
With an 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and promising early reviews, the critically favorite spin-off of the Mad Max films does find a worthy successor in Anya Taylor-Joy as she singlehandedly takes on the screaming Biker Horde in an attempt to protect the one thing she loves.
Furiosa Includes a Detail That Couldnʼt Make it to Fury Road
In ‘Fury Road’, we had a scene at night where there was somebody — there was a scene, a very brief scene, where someone was seen flying around on some sort of parasail sailing thing. It was storyboarded. But when we came to shooting it, or even long before we were going to shoot it, we thought, ‘It’s unnecessary.’ But the idea was there.
I remember he said, as we were devising the sequence, he said, ‘How about we go back to these flying people in the air so we’re not only shooting underneath the war rig, or inside the cabin of the war rig, or on top of it or the back of it, but let’s have it attack from above, rather than the Pole Cats.’ So that’s how we started on that sequence.
Fortunately, Fury Road scrapped the idea which makes the film less cluttered among its already high-octane, adrenaline-pumping mechanically devious plot. On the other hand, the scene that manifests in Anya Taylor-Joyʼs Furiosa gives the film an extra punch and a sense of looming and maddening danger to the plot.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga premieres worldwide on 24 May 2024.