Review: Furiosa

Furiosa follows the 15 year backstory of the co-star of Mad Max Fury Road. Anya Taylor-Joy plays the girl kidnapped from her idyllic home, and out for vengeance. Once again directed by George Miller, and co-starring Chris Hemsworth as Doctor Dementus.When Australian director George Miller revived the Mad Max series 30 years later, people were mostly interested in how Tom Hardy was going to fill the giant boots of Mel Gibson's Road Warrior. Until they saw 2015's Fury Road.The film was entirely owned by the Charlize Theron character, Furiosa. Max was the merest bystander. So, who was she?Watch the movie trailer here.Miller pre-empted that question with a private prequel covering the 15 years from Furiosa's childhood in the idyllic Green Place to finding herself in the Citadel of the monstrous Immortan Joe. It wasn't meant to be filmed - just to help Charlize get a handle on the character. But why waste a good script?But where a three-day car chase in a post-apocalyptic Wasteland has its own built-in structure, 15 years is harder to shape.Furiosa is a monumental three hours. And the star, Anya Taylor-Joy, takes almost an hour to show up at all.We meet infant Furiosa at home in the Green Place just as she's kidnapped by a gang of marauding bikers. But her fearsome mother takes off in hot pursuit.The leader of the motorbike horde - think an Australian, petrol-head Attila the Hun - is one Doctor Dementus. Miller's character names are inimitable! And Dementus is played by an unlikely Chris Hemsworth.Hemsworth seems to go to some trouble to disguise his strapping, surfie good looks - everything from a beer-belly fat suit, to Shakespearean vowels in Thor.Here he sports long greasy hair, a shaggy beard and a fake, crooked nose. Not to mention an idiotic voice.Having captured Furiosa, Dementus chucks her in a cage like a pet.Then he gets into a turf war with his neighbour Immortan Joe, who tells him he likes the look of his latest acquisition.Little Furiosa bides her time, until finally morphing into Anya Taylor-Joy. At least she avoids the usual fate of Joe's female prisoners - permanently pregnant - and instead joins the manual labourers working on the giant truck, the War Rig.And while Taylor-Joy is considerably more sylph-like than the physically imposing Charlize Theron, she manages to convince as Furiosa's younger self through total commitment to the part and a ballet-dancer's physical dexterity.It's interesting how many female action stars come from a ballet background, rather than, say, martial arts. Charlize, Anya, Michele Yeoh, Emily Blunt, Zoe Saldana...…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details