Few filmmakers have ever understood the thrill of the chase like George Miller; on the verge of his 80th birthday, he’s still going pedal to the metal, in hot pursuit of himself. Enough time has passed to confirm that, as far as pure action cinema goes, 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road was a movie-industry pacesetter, at once bruising and weightless and possessed of the sort of serene velocity desired by so many would-be blockbusters but achieved by so few. Miller’s ruthless on-set methodology—the inverse of his avuncular public persona—is well documented. For better or worse (talk to Tom Hardy or Charlize Theron; they’re not talking to each other), it gets results. The question when it comes to the decade-in-the-making follow-up, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga—which has already spawned more headlines about demanding filmmaking practices—is whether it’s possible to transcend that which was already transcendent. If it’s not, there’s another, even more pertinent question: Was another grueling round of physical and psychic anguish out in the outback really worth it?
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