Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

The prologue is a fantastic short film itself. A long action sequence that fills out Furiosa’s backstory and more clearly motivates her need for revenge. It’s riveting. The three-act movie doesn’t start until about an hour in, when Anya Taylor Joy takes over the role. She’s always been good, and here, without saying much, crushes this. This is partially helped by her big expressive eyes, which feel like a combination of a Margaret Keane painting and an A.I. (“A EYE”) generated pixie-person. Structurally this movie is completely topsy-turvy. The climactic chase, the one with the most dramatic stakes and the one during which the character’s goals and alliances completely shift, is in the middle of the movie. The finale is like a Samuel Beckett or David Mamet play. A dialogue-heavy two-hander in an asymmetrical void. The whole series is populated with mouthy carny types, and Chris Pine/Pratt/Evans/Hemsworth delivers his dangerous goofball impressively. Because we know eventually what’s going to happen, this doesn’t pack the suspenseful punch of Fury Road. It’s just a piece of the puzzle; a kind of a weird piece. But holy cow do you get your money’s worth.

Totally Killer

Is going back in time to help out your parents, or your younger self, becoming a sub-genre? There’s plenty to recommend in this horror movie version of “Bill & Ted’s” but it’s not the hill I’m gonna die on. Kiernan Shipka is becoming a leading lady, and maneuvers her way through the gimmicky plot easily and believably as the “final girl”. At times this is pretty funny, but are those “nostalgia” laughs? As in, “Look at her hair! That’s so ‘80s!”? Yet another movie that seems like it should have gone to theaters, but maybe I don’t understand the distribution business as well as I could.