Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Furiosa review says the film is a blazingly brilliant and bizarre battle of the senses. More than a movie, it’s an experience.

Buckle up, mates! Unrivaled Aussie director George Miller is back with his own brand of bombastic beauty. The adrenalin rush from  Furiosa — A Mad Max Saga will rev your engines for its entire two-and-a-half hour run time and then some. No extra caffeine needed to get you through this one.

Ever since Miller’s post-apocalyptical rogue road warriors started their engines back in 1979, he’s awed viewers with his savage what-the-hellery. It’s hard to believe that the original Mad Max film had a budget of $400,000, with $15,000 of that going to 23-year-old Mel Gibson.

The franchise has come a long way.

Furiosa’s budget is reported to be somewhere between $168 million and $233 million, depending on which news source you believe. There are claims that it’s the most expensive movie ever made in Australia, but every penny of that shows up on the screen.

Furiosa Review — The plot thickens

Furiosa is the origin story of the Charlize Theron character from the last Mad Max movie, Fury Road. The plot revolves around a young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) being snatched from the Green Place, a secret garden-type dwelling where she lives in peace with her sister, mother and other like minded and remarkably capable folk.

Her captors whisk her off to present her as a gift to the leader of a savage biker gang, a mercurial warlord named Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, clearly having the time, and giving the performance, of his life).

Dementus sets out to rule the Wastelands, keeping Furiosa in a wheeled cage like an adored pet. There is a reason he has a soft spot for her—the same reason he wears a strap-on teddybear, but I won’t spoil that for you. He loses her in an attempt to take over the Citadel (of Fury Road fame), where Furiosa comes of age.

She’s now played by Anya Taylor-Joy, and commences her quest for revenge and to return to the Green Place, as she poignantly promised her mother she would. Let’s just say her road is fraught with bloody, brutal, motor-oil soaked challenges.

Taylor-Joy, whom we all loved so much in The Queen’s Gambit, is fabulously fierce. Her dialogue may be sparse, but I could watch her glower and glare for days. She is the ideal young Furiousa, and does Theron justice.

Her combustive chase scenes through the desert are nothing short of insane. We haven’t seen that sort of manic intensity since Fury Road, and I welcome it, and revel in its return.

Now Mad Max movies are not for everyone. You have to sort of give yourself over to its berserk derangement. But if you can handle that kind of intensity for 2.5 hours, Furiosa is definitely the film for you.

Rated R

2 Hours 28 Minutes

If this Furiosa review encourages you to race over the sand dunes to the cineplex, get times and tickets at Fandango.com. I’d suggest seeing it on the largest screen possible.

Find the Furiosa review and others on Lisa’s new radio show website, MyMoviesandMore.com. Find out if it’s playing on a radio station in your area!