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.

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