HIGHWAY TO HELL

Director George Miller unleashes carnage at every turn in kinetic Mad Max prequel 'Furiosa'

- Geoffrey Macnab

The fifth Mad Max movie, which has premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, arrives on screen without one seemingly vital ingredient – Max himself. But no matter – this is a film made with purposeful savagery, and with considerable wit and lyricism, too. It has the concentrated intensity of 2015’s Fury Road, to which it is a prequel, and yet it unfolds across a far broader canvas. This is the origin story of that film’s female protagonist Furiosa (played there by Charlize Theron), taking her from early childhood to her emergence as a warrior.

We are right back in the hellish din of the “wasteland”, where humans exist in a “half life” and engage in a desperate battle for survival. They roam the desert in their souped-up trucks and on motorbikes, wearing skull helmets and glorified bondage gear. We meet Furiosa as a youngster, played by actor Alyla Browne – half of the film has elapsed before we catch our first glimpse of its star, Anya Taylor-Joy.