After a nearly decade-long hiatus from the Mad Max franchise and filmmaking more broadly, George Miller, at a staggering 79 years old, returns with youthful vigor to the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Australia to tell the origin story of its heroine.

Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a Shakespearean revenge story, suffused with many of the same stunts that have come to define the turbulent Mad Max universe. It is a far more intimate and character-driven film than its predecessor, Fury Road.

The film dedicates at least half of its 2.5-hour runtime to the titular character’s rise from kidnapped orphan to renegade war-rig motorist, as she meticulously bides her time and plots her vengeance against Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), the debauched warlord who kidnapped her after murdering her mother. On her quest for retribution, Furiosa strives to cling to her humanity, characterized by a peach core from her mother that she covertly carries throughout her servitude, despite the treachery and hardship she endures at Dementus’s behest.

Serviceably filling the role of Charlize Theron, Anya Taylor-Joy delivers an exceptional performance as the beleaguered Furiosa through the latter end of the film. The first half, however, features Alyla Browne, following Furiosa’s early years. Among Miller’s many creative directing successes in Furiosa is the fluidity with which Furiosa transitions from Browne to Taylor-Joy. It is among the best executions I’ve seen in any film.

The apocalypse brings out one’s feral disposition. In Fury Road, Tom Hardy almost exclusively communicated with grunts. The prequel screenplay gives Taylor-Joy similarly sparse dialogue, channeling most of her performance into a piercing gaze that manages to convey her thoughts more clearly than any dialogue could hope to accomplish.

The highlight performance comes from Hemsworth, best known as Marvel’s Thor. Despite not usually playing antagonist roles, he carries much of the dialogue with his natural charisma. Although he is funny, it is not a self-deprecating gag as in the last Thor portrayal. It is closer to American Psycho’s wry comedy. He portrays a muscle-clad warlord named Dementus, adding to Miller’s exceptional character names. In the same film, there is also Praetorian Jack, Scrotus, and Rictus Erectus.

A Machiavellian schemer with a penchant for power, Hemsworth convincingly pulls off a sadistic and slightly cartoonish version of King Lear’s Edmund, similarly justifying his evil deeds by the circumstances that wronged him. He seems immune to the depressing aura cast by the destruction of civilization and is in especially good spirits when murdering people.

Aiming to fill in the gaps of Mad Max’s lore, Furiosa introduces us to new cities and sites that had previously only been vaguely alluded to. From the fabled verdant oasis where Furiosa was born (and doggedly tried returning to in 2015’s Fury Road) to the hostile and arid wasteland communes of Gas Town and the Bullet Farm.

Its storyline aside, the film’s highlights are the sprawling highway spectacles that won the 2015 Fury Road six Oscars. Giant rigs barrel down the desolate road as raiders and marauders attack in increasingly elaborate and entertaining ways. Miller appears to have taken a few notes from the Palestinian terrorists wreaking havoc in the Middle East. Going a step beyond 2015’s Fury Road, Furiosa features suicide-bombing mercenaries paragliding onto the oil rig armed with rifles and explosives.

Despite the film’s visual triumphs, some critics have highlighted Furiosa’s tepid box office performance — it yielded the lowest Memorial Day weekend returns in 30 years and came behind a Garfield adaptation — suggesting that female protagonists are to blame. Such lazy and reductive “anti-woke” commentary, however, glosses over the fact that the 2015 Fury Road was also largely a female-led narrative, and last year’s Barbie was the highest-grossing film of the year and the 14th highest of all time.

The bigger problem is that, in recent years, movies have been struggling across the board. The 2024 box office is down 23.9% compared to last year and has dropped 42.2% from 2019 and 46.4% from 2018, according to data from Comscore.

This decline is exacerbated by rising costs, from online booking fees introduced by AMC to increasing ticket prices, coupled with the vast array of options available on streaming services. Most movies end up on streaming within weeks of their theatrical release, making it less appealing for families to spend over $50 on a cinema outing. This is unfortunate, as experiences such as Mad Max warrant the largest screens and speakers available.

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Audiences, on average, are not averse to female leads. They are wary of poorly written characters, typified by the “girl boss” trope whose narrative arcs have faced less hardship than Chelsea Clinton.

Filmmakers can only create the best product they can to entice audiences, and Miller’s Furiosa is more than worth the price of admission. The only misstep was releasing it nine years after the Mad Max hype had faded. Offering an immersive experience that warrants the largest screens and the loudest speakers to fully appreciate, the film expands the Mad Max universe with compelling visuals and intense action while delivering a well-crafted story and a richly developed, well-written character in Furiosa.

Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a computer engineer in Toronto pursuing his MBA.