Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is finally here, and the George Miller faithful are eating about as well as they did nearly a decade ago.
The prequel may be a bit more gentle and methodical than its bombastic predecessor (insofar as a Mad Max film is capable of being called “gentle”) but with the dynamic duo of Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth bossing the wasteland alongside Alyla Browne’s sensational turn as a child Furiosa, Miller had all the pieces he needed to keep his high-octane, sunburnt bullet hell trucking along.
Speaking of children, some of you may be wondering if this nearly two-and-a-half hour-long bonanza of blood, torture, and general wasteland-specific vices is one that you can bring your little ones along to; read ahead to find out more on the off-chance that you need to do so.
Is Furiosa appropriate for kids?
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga was given an R rating by the MPAA, meaning those under 17 years old need to be accompanied by an adult to see it in theaters.
And even without those technicalities, Furiosa is not a film one should rely on for family-centric entertainment. The violence, gore, and mutilation in the film are all incredibly frequent and just as graphic, and the sexual elements, while far less pronounced than the violence, are nothing to brush off, either.
But even if your 16 year old has taken their sex ed course in high school and is capable of stonefacing hyper-violent movies without any trouble, you’d still be better off seeking other movies for an excursion to the cinema. Furiosa is a film that absolutely demands its viewers to invest themselves in the mythology of its world; if you don’t or cannot do that, there’s a good to fair chance that it will fall apart for you on a few too many fronts for it to be worth the watch.
In summary, keep young children away from Furiosa at all costs, do the same with those under 13 or 14 albeit with a bit less gumption, and only give the green light to your eldest adolescents if you trust their maturity and they really insist that this is the type of movie (a very violent, very fast-paced action movie with lots of bullets and death and fire and motorcycles) that they enjoy.
As for the younger ones, you’re better off taking them to see something like IF or The Garfield Movie, which are now playing alongside Furiosa in cinemas.