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FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA

"An Epic Tale of Survival"

Content: -2 Extreme caution for older teenagers and adults.
Entertainment Quality:
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Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA is a prequel to MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. It tells the background story of the one-armed woman that Mad Max helped save, and how she became a female warrior at the Citadel, a rocky fortress in a post-apocalyptic Australian wilderness. As a young girl, a small band of bikers takes her from her oasis home. Her mother tries to save her but fails. Furiosa promises her mother to get home but ends up in the camps of two opposing warlords. Fifteen years after being kidnapped, she finds a possible way to escape and return home. It proves to be an extremely dangerous gamble, however.

FURIOSA is an epic tale of survival in a chaotic world, with some compelling drama and action and good performances. However, the ending is a bit anti-climactic. Also, part of the very end is confusing if you haven’t seen the previous MAD MAX movie, FURY ROAD. FURIOSA is filled with lots of strong, sometimes extreme, violence between marauding armies. Happily, though, there’s no foul language nor explicitly lewd content. Therefore, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.

Content:

(B, E, VVV, S, N, D, M

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:
Light moral worldview in a tale of survival where a kidnapped young girl grows up to be a fierce warrior and tries to fulfill a promise she made to her mother to escape the warlord who captured her and return to their paradise home in a secret oasis next to a large desert wasteland, with a theme of justice versus revenge toward the end, and a brief narration about humanity’s penchant for war down through the ages, plus a brief references to global warming in a narrated intro in the beginning;

Foul Language:
No foul language;

Violence:
Brief extreme action violence and lots of strong action violence includes an implied torture scene when a woman is tied to an X crucifix, and men try to force her to give them information (the torture isn’t actually shown, but her young daughter is cruelly forced to watch), an image of a severed arm, many chase scenes with souped-up cars and souped up motorcycles and trucks and a large tanker vehicle traveling fast, some battle scenes, the fighting involves many gun battles and some point-blank shootings, mother uses sniper rifle to pick off the four bikers who kidnapped her young daughter, some head shots, people fall off vehicles and also fall onto vehicles, many vehicles wreck, many near escapes, etc.;

Sex:
No sex scenes, but one warlord seems to have a harem, and it’s implied that one warlord’s adult son takes an interest in young girl, but she escapes before anything gross occurs, and the title character as an adult develops a light romantic interest in a warrior, and he in her, and they plan to escape the warlord for whom they work;

Nudity:
Images of upper male nudity as desert soldiers and other henchmen often go bare-chested or wear weapons over their bare chests;

Alcohol Use:
No alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:
No smoking, but two scenes show men taking a stimulant of some kind; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:
Girl is kidnapped and she has to survive while living among armies led by warlords, and girl cuts off her hair to pose as a teenage boy who doesn’t say anything (one man tells other men that she’s mute).

More Detail:

FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA is a prequel to MAD MAX: FURY ROAD and tells the background story of the one-armed woman that Max helped save and how she ended up as a female warrior at the Citadel, a rocky fortress in a post-apocalyptic Australian wilderness. Taking place over 15 years, FURIOSA is an epic tale of survival in a chaotic world with some compelling aspects, including several good performances, but the ending is a bit anti-climactic, and the movie is filled with lots of strong, sometimes extreme, violence between marauding armies, though there is no foul language nor explicitly lewd content.

The movie opens with a 10-year-old Furiosa and her friend picking pomegranates in a large green oasis in the Australian wilderness after human civilization has suffered a global collapse. The two girls find four biker dudes taking a rest in the oasis. Furiosa sneaks among their motorcycles and quietly cuts the fuel line of one of them, but she’s caught when she tries to disable a second one. Meanwhile, her friend goes to warn their people, who have established a secret enclave in the oasis.

Furiosa’s mother races after them with her rifle. The chase quickly enters the wilderness area, an area full of sand, gulleys, small canyons and large rock outcroppings. The mother manages to shoot down one of the bikers and take his bike to pursue the others.

Eventually, only one biker is left, but he and Furiosa, his captive, run into a group of marauding road warriors led by a muscular, bearded chap calling himself Dr. Dementus. Dementus fancies himself a desert prophet of some kind, not just a warlord, and spouts crazy, puffed up platitudes and aphorisms to his men and their victims. Furiosa’s captor tells Dementus and his men that Furiosa comes from a land of abundance.

Furiosa’s mother sneaks into their camp, but she’s caught. Before they’re separated, she makes Furiosa promise her that she’ll somehow find a way to return home. Tragically, Dementus orders her mother to be crucified and tortured to reveal the location of the oasis. He forces Furiosa to watch, but her mother never helps them. The scene cuts away from the actual torture. Instead, it focuses on Dementus forcing Furiosa’s left eye open, which is horrifying enough.

Dementus has the gall to make Furiosa his adopted daughter. He hopes he can convince her to reveal where she lived , but Furiosa shuts down completely and refuses to say anything anymore.

Time passes, and Dementus and his small army take control of Gas Town, a fortress sitting on top of an oil field. The leaders of Gas Town barter with two other fortresses, one that calls itself Bullet Town, which manufactures weapons and bullets, and another one called The Citadel, which grows vegetables.

Dementus has the not-so-bright idea to storm the Citadel and take control, but the fortress is too strong. So, he makes a deal with the citadel’s creepy leader, Importan [sic] Joe, that he will continue to supply him gas. However, sensing that Dementus favors Furiosa, he demands that Dementus turns over the girl.

Joe happens to have two sons, a big brute and an ugly skinny guy. When the big brute takes a special interest in Furiosa, she runs away, cuts her hair and poses as a teenage boy.

Years pass, and Joe’s army builds a large war machine vehicle with two tankers. The army uses the tankers to barter with Gas Town and Bullet Town for oil, bullets and weapons while the Citadel provides them with vegetables.

Furiosa finally sees a chance to escape the Citadel and return home. She becomes a helmeted warrior on the war machine.

So, the question becomes, can Furiosa escape the wasteland and return home, like she promised her mother?

Taking place over 15 years, FURIOSA is an epic tale of survival that takes place in a chaotic world. The performances are rather good, though there’s more action than talking, except for the major villain, played by Chris Hemsworth, who’s very loquacious. His character’s talkative nature is often humorous because he likes to express himself in grandiose platitudes. Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy do a good job playing the younger and older Furiosa. Tom Burke does a fine job as the kindly warrior who becomes Furiosa’s romantic interest.

As an epic tale if survival, FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA has a light moral worldview. The heroine is trying to fulfill a promise she made to her mother. The ending also has a brief thematic exploration of justice versus revenge. That said, the ending is a bit anti-climactic, so some or many viewers may feel a bit cheated. Also, part of the ending, especially the very final images, are confusing if you haven’t seen the previous movie, FURY ROAD. Finally, FURIOSA contains some extreme action violence and lots of strong intense action violence. Happily, though, there’s no foul language and no sex scenes. The leader of the Citadel, however, does seem to have a harem of women, though no scenes are shown of him or other men with the women. Also, one of his adult sons takes an interest in the young Furiosa, but she escapes and disappears before anything gross happens. Two scenes do show two warriors taking some kind of stimulant.

MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution



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