George Miller’s ‘Furiosa’ Is a Blast of Relentless, Often Brutal Mayhem

You don't go to a George Miller movie for the expected. The Australian director is a master of the bizarre, and has spent his career making images that seem to come out of the deepest recesses of the human consciousness.

In 2015, Miller did what many thought was unimaginable. He released Mad Max: Fury Road, his long-awaited, long-troubled continuation of the Mad Max series which he began in 1979. Fury Road defied all expectations with its wondrous symphony of action. But it also diverted attention away from the hero of the title, road warrior Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy), and introduced this audience to a captivating new fighter: Imperator Furiosa, a bald woman with one arm played with ferociousness and a well of pain by Charlize Theron.

Now comes Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the story of that woman, now played as an adult by Anya Taylor-Joy, that premiered Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival. Of course, Miller has chosen not to play the same hits of Fury Road over again—though, make no mistake, there are astounding sequences of vehicular action. Instead of the streamlined story of Fury Road, essentially a race back and forth to freedom, he has made a picaresque story of Furiosa's rise with a Dickensian flare. It harkens back to the more sprawling nature of the original Mad Max films, but it’s also a spiritual work that grapples with how humanity reacts to grief and loss— whether sorrow perverts you or makes you stronger—all while delivering on the visual spectacle you could hope for from Miller.

Read more at The Daily Beast.