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The Trailer For 'Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga' Does Not Inspire Hope

By Petr Navovy | Film | December 1, 2023 |

By Petr Navovy | Film | December 1, 2023 |


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After what seems like far too short a development time, we have been given our first proper look at George Miller’s follow-up to one of the best films ever made. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, a prequel to 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, stars Anya Taylor-Joy as the titular character, played so incredibly in an instantly iconic performance in a film of instantly iconic everything in Fury Road by Charlize Theron. The trailer for Furiosa dropped yesterday, and…it doesn’t exactly fill me with hope.

Everything that I say from here on has to be prefaced by the fact that (usually) you’d have to be a fool to bet against George Miller, but for me personally, this trailer is mostly in line with what my expectations for Furiosa have been since the film was announced: Low, very low. Admittedly, part of that is down to personal prejudice, as in general I have an aversion to sequels and revisiting beloved stories (ironic, I know, both because the films in The Before Trilogy are some of my favourites of all time, and because Mad Max: Fury Road itself falls under both of those categories), but there’s something about the way this trailer looks that is validating my lack of excitement for this project. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but where its predecessor was such a fantastic mix of organic and stylized, with excellent CGI art direction used to bolster the real-world action, here it appears on first sight that things have skewed too far in the artificial direction.

Granted, it can’t be easy following up what was—and remains—a true miracle of blockbuster cinema. Mad Max: Fury Road is a film that can only be described in superlatives. It was our film of the decade here, and eight years later it still dazzles, so expertly shot and staged, rich and deep, redefining the language of modern action cinema with its glorious stunt work and gonzo imagery. To directly follow that up must be an intimidating task, even for a character like George Miller. You can judge for yourself from the trailer whether you think we should get excited or not. One thing that should reassure is that editor Margaret Sixel is still on board, however the legendary cinematographer John Seale has been replaced by Simon Duggan (I, Robot, Live Free or Die Hard, 300: Rise of an Empire).

Furiosa is out 24th May 2024