It’s unfortunate that Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is not doing well in theaters because it is a truly great sci-fi action piece and a worthy prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road. But given how great the film is, it is certain that it will join that club of films that were initial box-office bombs and become revered as classics later on, as it happened to Blade Runner, The Thing, Edge of Tomorrow, The Suicide Squad, and so on.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga as its title suggests is the background story of Furiosa, the breakout character of Mad Max: Fury Road. As a prequel to that film, it begins back when Furiosa (first played by Alyla Browne, then later by Anya Taylor-Joy) was a young girl who was kidnapped from her idyllic garden home by barbaric raiders. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the world of Mad Max, these are post-apocalyptic films that take place in Australia, which is a barren desert wasteland full of roving gangs that prey on the weak. After seeing her mother killed by the gang that snatched her, Furiosa harbors a personal hatred against the gang and its leader Dr. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), a charismatic, yet brutish thug. Seeing Furiosa as a stand-in for his long-lost children, Dementus comes to think of her as his own daughter.

Living a nomadic hunter-gatherer existence, Dementus’ gang encounters the savage society of Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), who we last saw in Mad Max: Fury Road. After tense negotiations between Dementus and Immortan Joe, Furiosa was traded to Immortan Joe, who intended to raise her to be one of his wives. However, Furiosa escaped that fate, and masquerading as a young male she joined one of Immortan Joe’s pit crews with her desire to return to her home and killing Dementus being her driving force.

Director George Miller, who introduced us to the world of Mad Max, has wowed us again with this captivating, brutal and exciting post-apocalyptic tale of vengeance and survival. The film is visually and tonally similar to Mad Max: Fury Road but differs in that the former film told a tighter story that moved as fast as the vehicles featured in the film. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga tells a more sprawling story that spans years and features many characters, a lot of them returning from Mad Max: Fury Road. Even Mad Max himself pops up in a cameo though he is portrayed by Tom Hardy’s double.

While an expansion and exploration of the world of Mad Max is always welcome, doing so robs Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga of that feeling of intensity and non-stop action that made Mad Max: Fury Road so beloved. Make no mistake, there is a lot of action in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga but there is also a lot of character development as we bear witness to seeing the brutal transformation of Furiosa as she starts off as an innocent yet skilled child into a hardened nearly feral survivor who desperately holds on to lost dreams. As such, the film time between the major action scenes are much longer, although the epic car chases and battles are well worth the wait. The best sequence comes around the halfway point of the film that involves another one of those scenes where motorized gangs besiege a souped-up supply tanker called a War Rig that is armed to the teeth. The scene lasts about 15 minutes and is worth the price of admission alone thanks to George Miller’s skillful talent for delivery pulse-pounding action.

Anya Taylor-Joy does a great job as Furiosa as she takes on some of the characteristics of Mad Max in that she rarely speaks and adopts a savage loner persona. The other actors like Hemsworth are just as memorable in their roles with the standouts being Tom Burke and Charlee Fraser. Burke portrays Praetorian Jack, the sympathetic driver of a war rig that serves as a prototype to Mad Max’s character and could explain why Furiosa eventually bonded with Max. Meanwhile, in her brief presence as Furiosa’s mother, Fraser, was outstanding in her performance as a skilled warrior who went above and beyond to save her daughter. Even though she was not successful, her sacrifice left a solid impression on young Furiosa.

Exploring the world of Mad Max is a welcome idea although the filmmakers should now think beyond epic car chases and battles in deserts. What else is going on in this world? What about the coastline of the continent or beyond? It’s too bad the film is not performing well because it is unlikely we will revisit this world in the near future.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a spectacular entry into the Mad Max Saga that does what it sets out to do: provide the origin story of Furiosa in a kinetic and engaging fashion that exemplifies George Miller’s cinematic style.