A brutal but fascinating vision

George Miller’s Furiosa’ is an origin story, but the film also expands his dystopian world view

- PETER HOWELL

Anya Taylor-Joy gets very few speaking lines in "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," a deliberate move by George Miller to avoid any distractions, but she makes silence commanding, writes Peter Howell.

CANNES, FRANCE After 45 years and multiple casting changes and story swerves, we should know by now not to make assumptions about George Miller's "Mad Max" apocalyptic road movie franchise.

Yet "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," world-premiering out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival, still comes as a surprise. The fifth film in the ongoing adventures of a future desert Wasteland of rogues and anti-heroes, it isn't just the trailer-hyped origin story of title warrior Furiosa, who was played by Charlize Theron in the magnificent fourth film, "Mad Max: Fury Road" (2015).

We do get that back story and, in fact, get not one but two vivid new versions of Furiosa: as a 20-something scrapper played by Anya Taylor-Joy and as a 10-year-old dynamo played by Alyla Browne.

They're both fast, furious and fabulous as they mix it up with an endless array of villainous freaks and freaky villains, the best of the latter being a teddy bear-toting bike gang boss played by Chris Hemsworth.

The tale Miller really wants to tell, it turns out, is a more expansive look at the catastrophe-altered and liquids-scarce Wasteland (otherwise known as Australia gone to hell) that he's been exploring since Mel Gibson's highway cop Max Rockatansky first motored into trouble in the first "Mad Max" in 1979. Gibson was succeeded in the role by Tom Hardy in the franchise revival that was "Fury Road," but Hardy is MIA in "Furiosa," although we get a glimpse of yet another actor playing Max.