By George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday where the film received a standing ovation of just under eight minutes.
Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, and Miller were on hand for the event, and reviews of the film have gone online since the premiere.
With 31 reviews counted, the film sits at an 87% (8.5/10) on Rotten Tomatoes which puts it well ahead of “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” at 81% (6.5/10), about on par with the original “Mad Max” at 89% (7.7/10), but behind “The Road Warrior” 93% (8.4/10) and “Mad Max: Fury Road” 97% (8.6/10).
Here’s a sampling of review quotes:
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga doesn’t feel like an overture for the vehicular carnage of Fury Road so much as it retroactively makes Fury Road feel like a coda for the epic tale Miller tells here.” – David Ehrlich, IndieWire
“Furiosa is a fine prelude to that mighty arc. Its initial rattling gradually gives way to the robust and satisfying purr of Miller, despite everything, making it work.” – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
“This is a film made with purposeful savagery, and with considerable wit and lyricism, too. It has the concentrated intensity of 2015’s Fury Road, to which it is a prequel, and yet it unfolds across a far broader canvas.” – Geoffrey Macnab, The Guardian
“Furiosa is such a thrilling ride, packed with set pieces that are a masterclass in staging action, that it’s a little sad when the plot veers towards the events of the previous movie — because we know that’s where the ride ends.” – Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
“The chassis may look familiar but there is a very different engine driving Furiosa from that of Fury Road: it’s a rich, sprawling epic that only strengthens and deepens the Max-mythology. It shall ride eternal!” – John Nugent, Empire Magazine
“It all adds up to is a movie that can be darkly bedazzling, and that will be embraced and defended in a dozen passionate ways — but it’s one that, to me, falls very short of being a ‘Mad Max’ home run.” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“Anya Taylor-Joy is a fierce presence in the title role and Chris Hemsworth is clearly having fun as a gonzo Wasteland warlord, but the mythmaking lacks muscle, just as the action mostly lacks the visual poetry of its predecessor.” – David Rooney, THR
“Despite its many, many action sequences, and a symphonic cacophony of motorbikes vrooming in the sand, the movie… evolves into a slog that’s working hard to persuade us we’re having a good time, though it may not be actually giving us one.” – Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine
In the film a young Furiosa (Taylor-Joy) is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus (Hemsworth). But she then transfers over to Joe (Tom Burke).
In the end, her loyalties lie with no one as she forms a bond with a rogue, mysterious warrior in the middle of the Wasteland as they team to take a prized commodity, petroleum, into their own hands.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” opens everywhere next week.
The post “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” Reviews Are In appeared first on Dark Horizons.
