George Miller’s ‘Furiosa’ Receives a 7-Minute Standing Ovation at Cannes, Critics Also Praise the Movie

It really does seem like legendary Australian filmmaker George Miller cannot miss his major projects. It really does. The visionary is the one who provided us with the Mad Max franchise, a cult classic series that initially starred Mel Gibson in the titular role before he was replaced by Tom Hardy in Fury Road. The latter is also known for introducing Furiosa, initially played by Charlize Theron, a character so popular that Miller decided to make a prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, which premieres globally next week but has had its Cannes premiere only recently. Anya Taylor-Joy leads the movie, and based on the reaction at Cannes, Miller will have another major hit!

Furiosa is set to be released in theaters on May 23, 2024, which is next week, but the Cannes premiere came this week in Cannes, where it was screened as an out-of-competition feature, and the reactions were great!

The premiere at Cannes, as we have said, was a major success for Miller, as the movie received a 7-minute long standing ovation from the audience present, which is a good indicator that the movie is great and that the cast and crew behind the project have done things right.

You could argue that Megalopolis received the same reaction last night, but with polarizing reactions, and while that is definitely true, we are happy to confirm that early critic reactions to Furiosa are good and that the movie will not share the same fate as Coppola’s passion project. The movie currently has a Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with 87% positive reviews; the consensus states the following: “Retroactively enriching Fury Road with greater emotional heft if not quite matching it in propulsive throttle, Furiosa is another glorious swerve in mastermind George Miller’s breathless race towards cinematic Valhalla.” It also has a very high 82/100 score on Metacritic.

RogerEbert.com’s Robert Daniels gave the movie a 4/4 rating, praising it as follows: “A big, entertaining popcorn movie, told with a sense of adventure and play…. “Furiosa” aims to blow you away. And it does. To Valhalla and beyond.“

In a similar fashion, Rolling Stone‘s David Fear also praised the movie: “Furiosa runs on a high-octane philosophical perspective that finds hope in a hopeless place. Also, a lot of cars go fast and shit blows up. It’s a win-win.“

Geoffrey Macnab was also full of praise for the movie in his review for the Guardian: “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.” His colleague, Peter Bradshaw, also praised the movie: “Taylor-Joy and Hemsworth are a great pairing and Taylor-Joy is an overwhelmingly convincing action heroine. She sells this sequel.“

David Ehrlich of IndieWire was also among those critics who praised the movie in his review: “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga doesn’t feel like an overture for the vehicular carnage of Fury Road so much as it retroactively makes Fury Road feel like a coda for the epic tale Miller tells here.” He assigned it an A- grade.

However, not all reviews were overwhelmingly positive. Kevin Maher of the Times assigned the movie a 2/5 score, describing it as follows: “A thundering beginning and a searing sense of place fail to compensate for the wearisome repetition and empty theatrics that slowly swamp this much-awaited blockbuster.”

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter was also among those who did not like the film that much: “Anya Taylor-Joy is a fierce presence in the title role and Chris Hemsworth is clearly having fun as a gonzo Wasteland warlord, but the mythmaking lacks muscle, just as the action mostly lacks the visual poetry of its predecessor.“

This is a summary of the major reactions from Cannes. Okay, we realize that the film is not absolutely perfect, but it is a worthy prequel and a movie that will definitely do good. The reactions are more than promising, so we are certain that Furiosa will have a successful theatrical run that will see it remain as one of the best movies of the year.

This is what we have for you in this report, but with the cinematic release approaching, we are definitely going to talk about this movie more in the upcoming days, so don’t forget to keep following us for all the news and updates!

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