Are you primed for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga? It roars into Cineworld this May and acts as the prequel to the blistering 2015 blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road. In it, we are introduced to the younger Imperator Furiosa, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, as she confronts her captor and nemesis Dementus (Chris Hemsworth).
Director George Miller again delivers a sun-scorched apocalyptic onslaught of vehicular mayhem. As with Fury Road, we can rest assured that many of the more outrageous stunts were performed in-camera, which promises to lend a crunchy tangibility and physical urgency to Furiosa's battle with Dementus.
To get you ready for Furiosa, we're here with a recap of Fury Road's five most explosive scenes. These are the sequences that secured it as a modern action classic and helped pave the way for Furiosa's big-screen origin story.
1. Into the sandstorm
Of course, there's no way of actually filming inside a blazing sandstorm. This is one of Fury Road's understandably CG-heavy scenes but Miller's brazen visual aesthetic lifts the scene far above the dreary digitized onslaught of many action movies.
The ochre and amber hues of the whirling sand are intercut with striking black and white fragments as the lightning hits, a visual banquet for the Valhalla where 'war boy' Nux (Nicholas Hoult) imagines himself going. One must credit actors Hoult, Tom Hardy (playing the titular Mad Max) and Charlize Theron (playing Imperator Furiosa) for even attempting to keep up with Miller's whirlwind vision as they give intensely physical performances.
2. Mad Max versus Furiosa
Not all of the scenes in Fury Road are painted on such a grandiose scale. It's during the more intimate moments that we can get up close to the actor's faces and discern the blazing intensity that is driving their performances. Famously, Hardy and Theron didn't get on during filming with the former's somewhat method approach clashing with Theron's naturalism.
Nevertheless, that off-screen antagonism successfully translates into cinematic enmity as Max, Furiosa and the 'wives', whom she has stolen from warlord Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), fight to gain the upper hand. Tom Holkenborg's propulsive, percussive score is another critical sonic element in this sequence, battering the audience as the characters batter each other.
3. Battle with the biker gang
Much has been made of Fury Road's appreciably simplistic storyline. It essentially consists of one chase away from Immortan Joe's Citadel and then another chase back in the same direction. But it's realised with such astonishing levels of practical ambition that one careens along with it, and the refreshing absence of expositional backstory means we get right to the heart of the action immediately.
The scene where Furiosa and Max, now reluctant allies, are beset on all sides by a madcap post-apocalyptic biker gang sums up the movie so well. It's the sort of genuinely dangerous action film that we didn't think would get cleared in the modern age of insurance premiums and pampered A-list stars.
4. Showdown with Immortan Joe
Furiosa promises to show us how the titular character first met up with the ruthless Immortan Joe (played as a younger man by Lachy Hulme). Of course, going by the events of Mad Max: Fury Road, we know exactly how that relationship ultimately plays out: in gear-crunching, face-mangling style.
Miller's kinetic camerawork feels primed to explode as the long-awaited showdown pits these two enemies together atop and alongside Furiosa's war rig tanker, and it's as if the director can barely keep up with the speed of his own chaotic creation.
5. Nux's sacrifice
Repeat viewings of Mad Max: Fury Road help one appreciate the density and intricacy of its lore, especially regarding the war boys. Immortan Joe's devoted, shaven-headed, pale followers spray-paint their teeth silver in the misguided belief that death will take them to Valhalla, a delightfully unexpected mash-up of Viking mythology and a devastated desert landscape where the only currency is survival.
The primary war boy is Nux, played with gleeful abandon by Nicholas Hoult, whose arc carries him from a follower of Immortan Joe to a key ally of Mad Max and Furiosa. The character's ultimate sacrifice is not only surprisingly poignant but also helps underpin the palpable sense of danger coursing through the Mad Max universe.
Tickets for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga can be booked by clicking the link below. It opens at Cineworld on May 24th.
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