Miller treated these older women with respect and good humour. These women are brilliant – utterly bloodthirsty and thrilling for battle. Valkyrie rides with an all-female tribe of gypsy geriatrics called the Vuvalini. Because their sole purpose within the film is to be protected, they are reduced to vehicles for Furiosa's escapades.īesides Furiosa, the one notable female warrior is Valkyrie, played by Megan Gale (and even she had to spend some screen time naked before earning her right to party with the War Boys). The transformative power of female understanding? Or the exploitation of a gender stereotype for the sake of a plot twist? Time and time again, these concubines fail to excite or excel. At one point, when faced with enemy fire, one of the concubines stands stock-still and asks her panicked companion, 'Do you think they know they're shooting at us?' Admittedly, the guy holding the gun may have just had his eyes blown out, but really?! That's your response to a hailstorm of bullets? In another bizarre incident, a crazed War Boy is completely transformed by five minutes alone with a sympathetic woman. Never take a girl on an adventure – she'll just give birth. They spend most of the time sitting in the back of the rig, occasionally loading guns but mainly looking terrified or going into labour. With very minor plot tweaks, Fury Road could have been made without the five young women, and been better for it. Furiosa ends Fury Road covered in dirt, one eye swollen shut, the stump of her amputated arm exposed, standing exhausted in front of the young women she fought so desperately to protect.īack-seat riders: Fury Road's 'young female cast aren't given enough significant screen time or space to truly develop'. She gets wrecked, not just physically, but aesthetically. Although she's the ultimate warrior, she's not one-dimensional – there are moments in the film where her sense of duty to her young dependants results in palpable emotional frustration. Her idea of makeup is smearing axle grease across her forehead. There's no question that Theron's Imperator Furiosa is an absolute baller.

The female-centric casting has earned the ire of men's rights groups (not a thing, guys), with the truly loathsome blog, Return of the Kings, accusing Fury Road of being nothing other than 'feminist propaganda posing as a guy flick.' Unfortunately, men's rights groups needn't have gotten their panties in a twist. Mad Max's publicity machine has made a huge effort to attract female viewers by presenting Theron as the new benchmark for heroines in action movies and emphasising the number of female characters. The fourth instalment in the Mad Max franchise, Fury Road follows Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) as he teams up with Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to rescue five beautiful concubines desperate to escape the clutches of a grotesque, tyrannical warlord and his army of crazed War Boys. It is the most fun I've ever had in a cinema. George Miller's apocalyptic desert is a vicious salute to the dream of a red-hot Australian summer set alight by the ageless, testosterone-fuelled fantasies of youth and young manhood. I have never seen anything like Fury Road's opening scene: rivers of boys screaming across the red desert in mutant vehicles, roaring at each other in thick Australian accents to 'fang it' as they inhale silver spray paint, their eyes bright with the knowledge they have nothing to live for but death and glory.

Mad max fury road cast girls