1 of 5 | Anya Taylor-Joy is “Furiosa.” Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
LOS ANGELES, May 15 (UPI) —Furiosa, in theaters May 24, need not be another Mad Max: Fury Road, which was a high watermark for cinema, let alone this franchise. It would be fine to be another Thunderdome, which was also good, but Furiosa still exceeds even those measured expectations.
In the post-apocalyptic wasteland, young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) is kidnapped from the Green Place by members of Dementus’ (Chris Hemsworth) Congress of Destruction. None of the congressmen live to tell Dementus where this oasis is and Furiosa won’t talk either.
So Dementus keeps Furiosa hostage, even bringing her to The Citadel to attempt to overtake its warlord, Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and his army of War Boys. Much later, and now played by Anya Taylor-Joy, Furiosa plots her escape and revenge against Dementus.
The Mad Max world George Miller created supports different forms of storytelling in each film. Fury Road was propulsive and bombastic while Thunderdome was more localized to one region of the wasteland, and a second that Max discovers after being exiled.
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The first sequel, The Road Warrior was more of a vehicular heist movie while the original film was more of a drama than an action movie. Closer to Thunderdome, Furiosa lives in the worlds introduced by Fury Road but it is no less epic.
Because Furiosa is a prequel to Fury Road, fans know that Furiosa ends up with Immortan Joe, shaves her head and loses her arm. Still, those events occur naturally, sometimes incidentally, and never stop the movie to point out the callbacks.
The Citadel and Immortan Joe’s harem of concubines were first seen as Fury Road plowed through them in chase scenes. Here, entire scenes get to play out in those realms.
Furiosa visits the neighboring Gastown and Bullet Farms, who provided armies for Fury Road’s chase but now are settings for plot and action. Dementus’ encampment is a new enclave of the wasteland.
The film introduces awesome new vehicles for chases between Immortan Joe and Dementus’ men, with Furiosa in the middle of it all. But, in a bittersweet irony, the longevity of the Mad Max franchise now means that the current film employs more screen work than its predecessors, which simply didn’t have that luxury.
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Perhaps Miller’s imagination finally got bigger than could be built in the real world. There is still real vehicular work, but many sequences appear to use The Volume technology to allow the filmmakers to film in front of backgrounds unfolding on a screen behind them.
Fury Road combined shots and enhanced backgrounds digitally, but a tanker chase in the middle of Furiosa is particularly glaring. It looks like they used Fury Road as the backdrop for the new movie.
Coloring the sky to look more apocalyptic is fine. Putting the sky on a screen behind actors looks far less natural.
The sequence is still full of new contraptions, like parasails and a metal claw like a full size version of a claw machine in an arcade. Miller still uses the camera dynamically in these sequences, judiciously following the assault on a tanker from all sides.
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But when it cuts to Taylor-Joy standing on a real outback road, it’s a relief to be back in the real world.
The Citadel was already a digitally enhanced set in Fury Road. Having more stationary dialogue scenes on those sets allows more time to notice the background when characters are chatting on impossibly high catwalks.
There’s still probably more vehicular work than any other Hollywood movie, just less than Mad Max films used to employ. They do drive over a dozen War Boys standing atop a tanker down the desert road.
The final chase looks like they’re really driving on sand dunes, except for closeups but that’s fair to cut to reaction shots. A shootout occurs on an outdoor set.
So these are still Mad Max action sequences created by George Miller, and designed by Guy Norris. They’re playing with more tools than used to be available, and watching War Boys fling themselves off moving vehicles to self-immolate never gets old.
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In the score, Junkie XL himself, Tom Holkenborg, employs some of the memorable cues from his Fury Road score for relevant action scenes. But elsewhere, he lets the music be subtle for this film’s dramatic attention.
The world Miller created in 1979 continues to generate worthwhile new stories and engrossing places to explore. With Furiosa as compelling as Max Rockatansky, that world grows even more vast.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
Left to right, Belgian director Zoe Wittock, French journalist Nathalie Chifflet, Belgian director/rapper Baloji, French actress Emmanuelle Beart, cinematographer Gilles Porte and writer Pascal Buron attend the Camera D’Or Jury photo call at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, on May 15, 2024. Photo by Rune Hellestad/UPI | License Photo
The Snapshot: Pixar comes out swinging with an energetic and cuddly comedy that pairs big laughs with an earnest message about living alongside nature.
Hoppers
9 out of 10
G, 1hr 44mins. Animated Sci-Fi Family Comedy.
Directed by Daniel Chong.
Starring Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Kathy Najimy, Jon Hamm, Dave Franco and Meryl Streep.
Now Playing at Galaxy Cinemas Sault Ste. Marie.
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True all ages fun is increasingly hard to find, and hoping for great, original works out of Hollywood is only getting rarer from the major studios. Thankfully, Disney and Pixar’s Hoppers is making the search a little easier.
Director Daniel Chong (best known for the TV series We Bare Bears) has masterfully directed a frantic masterpiece that is worthy to stand among iconic greats in Pixar’s esteemed catalogue. Filled with bustling action, a brave moral standing, and an endless parade of cuddly animal heroes, Hoppers is a dam great time.
A beaver dam great time, that is.
The story is a bit unusual, set in the northwestern town of Beaverton, Oregon, where a local University student and nature activist named Mabel (Piper Curda) is in a constant fight with the town’s development-driven mayor (Jon Hamm) over a highway expansion over a local glade and nature preserve.
Things gets wild, however, when Mabel’s consciousness gets sucked into a beaver robot through a process called “hoppers” – and suddenly becomes a literal friend of the forest, setting off a chain of events I dare not spoil.
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One of the strongest elements in Hoppers is Jesse Andrews’ terrific screenplay, built on a story structure that has made Pixar’s work stand out among family entertainment for the last 40 years. (Part of this film’s release, co-incidentally, marks the studio’s 40th anniversary this year.)
Not only has Andrews filled the plot with multiple organic surprises that repeatedly heighten the stakes of Mabel’s quest to save the glade, but the script also balances the peacefulness of nature to – anchor the story – with the frazzled panic of modern human life to develop the humour.
Getting these juxtaposing elements to work is done swiftly by Chong, Andrews and the talented voice ensemble bringing it altogether. The actors above are all commendable, but the scene stealer is Bobby Moynihan (of SNL fame) as beaver leader King George.
Moynihan’s George is smart, sincere, and socially aware that teaches Mabel some core lessons without making it overly obvious to the audience. Still, the film as a whole effectively gets its messages across about what a realistic plan for living in harmony across species actually looks like – and how to go about trying to do the right thing.
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Pixar’s original works have struggled for several years, mainly upended by the COVID pandemic ruining the box office prospects of multiple great movies, including Soul, Turning Red and Onward.
Get ready now for Hoppers to take the spotlight both commercially and among repeat viewings for kids – the film is laugh out loud funny and filled with heart. This is the best original film from Pixar since Coco almost a decade ago.
Read more here: You can’t miss Pixar’s Coco (2017 review)
The only small critiques, in fact, is that the main conflict doesn’t fully emerge or develop until halfway through the film, and the pacing is a bit slow until we get to the actual animal “hopping” that comes at the end of the first act. What’s also missing is the ethereal discovery of poignancy that made Pixar’s earliest filmography seem truly special.
Still, don’t let these small quips deter you. Hoppers is the first great film of 2026 and an absolute blast watching at the cinema.
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Children, parents, grandparents, neighbours, your mailman – everyone should see it this weekend. And seeing it sooner is a great way to encourage the development of more original, thoughtful and fun movies like this to be made.
Pankaj Kapur in ‘Jab Khuli Kitaab’
| Photo Credit: ZEE5
Cracks in conjugality constitute a common conflict device in Hindi cinema. Usually, the male commits the bhool and expects forgiveness. Most fissures appear early, but what if a grandmother reveals a long-buried truth? Can the man accept it as easily as he expects forgiveness? Seasoned actor and theatre practitioner Saurabh Shukla gives new meaning to a prescribed book, making us both chuckle and reflect.
Being a cinematic adaptation of his play, the constraints of the medium are not completely erased, but it shines as a heartfelt exploration of love’s endurance.
The film’s core premise revolves around a decades-old secret — Anusuya’s (Dimple Kapadia) confession of an indiscretion early in their marriage — that surfaces after she awakens from a coma. This revelation forces Gopal (Pankaj Kapur) to re-examine 50 years of trust through the lens of this buried truth as a forgotten ad hoc presence in his life threatens to become a permanent peeve. Enter Negi (Aparshakti Khurana), a young client-chasing lawyer who becomes an unlikely facilitator of tough conversations, legal proceedings, and emotional confrontations.
Synopsis: Gopal and Anusuya’s decades-long marriage is shaken by a revelation.
Though the transgression is a distant memory, its emergence shatters Gopal’s sense of shared space with Anusuya. He questions whether the life he built was an illusion. The woman he cared for seems suddenly unfamiliar. The film asks questions that may seem flimsy but persist in memory. For instance, Anusuya’s love for poetry that Gopal never really discovers, or the concept of marzi (inclination) in relationships.
Meanwhile, the revelation shakes the family unit. The parents initially try to shield the children from the truth, but the tension inevitably seeps in. Initially, it seems the son and son-in-law are bitten by the Baghban bug, but as the film progresses, the writing provides space for a dialogue on how companionship extends beyond the couple.
The film quietly reflects on the role of memory in a marriage, treating it as a central force that both sustains and disrupts long-term bonds. Gopal’s growing dementia suddenly seems like a cure for his marital problem. Without underlining, Shukla also explores the impact of the revelation on Gopal’s social psyche. Suddenly, a seemingly progressive man starts behaving like a parochial uncle, as we find dozens of them around us these days. Is it always the personal that shapes the political socialisation? Another uncle reminds us that laughing too much leads to days of sorrow, as if the Almighty has assigned us a quota of happiness.
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A still from the film
| Photo Credit:
ZEE5
Kapur’s masterful control shines through in Gopal’s progression from bewilderment and stubborn pride to vulnerability and, eventually, the rediscovery of love. Over the years, Kapur has shone in the estuary of comedy that holds a tragedy in its fold. He lives the script’s shifting tones. From the tender caregiving scenes in the beginning to the profound internal shift in demeanour and body language toward the film’s resolution— the transformation feels earned and believable.
It is hard to believe Dimple as a wilting wife, but soon we realise it’s the gravitas in her voice and personality that makes Anusuya a believable picture of regret and resilience.
We know the coma is more like a metaphor, but the medical aspect is treated with a heavy hand. The plot unfolds in a somewhat linear and foreseeable way, with the revelation and its consequences following expected beats. The contrivances, the dot-to-dot mechanics of storytelling, surface in the second half as if the director is keen on arriving at the crux without peeling the layers properly. But it is the chemistry between Shukla and Kapur that prevents this bittersweet dramedy from becoming schmaltzy.
In cinema logic, sharks, especially great whites, make excellent characters in animation. From Bruce in Finding Nemo to Mr Shark, the master of disguise in The Bad Guys, these apex predators turn their great gummy mouths with many pointy teeth into jolly good fellows.
In Hoppers, the 30th animation film from Pixar, there is a great white called Diane (Vanessa Bayer), who, despite being a scary assassin, has such sweet, shining eyes and a warm smile that one cannot help but grinning back.
Hoppers (English)
Director: Daniel Chong
Voice cast: Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, Dave Franco
Storyline: A fierce animal lover uses a new technology to converse with animals and save their habitat from greedy, self-serving humans
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Runtime: 104 minutes
We first meet Mabel (Piper Curda) as a little girl trying to set all the animals in school free and being sent home for her pains (and also because she bites one of the teachers trying to stop her). Her busy mother drops Mabel with her grandmother (Karen Huie) who shows her the peace and quiet that can be hers if she only stops to listen.
The glade where grandmother Tanaka teaches her this valuable life lesson becomes a special place for Mabel. Years later, after her grandmother has passed, 19-year-old Mabel is a college student and still fighting for animal rights.
Matters come to a head when the mayor of Beaverton, Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm) plans to blow up the glade to build a freeway. Mabel tries to get signatures from the citizenry to stop the freeway plans, but that comes to naught as people quickly turn away from the zealous Mabel.
Frustrated, with no recourse in sight, Mabel chances upon a beaver making its way to her university’s biology lab. First worried that her biology professor Sam (Kathy Najimy) is doing some unspeakable animal experiments, Mabel is nonplussed to find that Sam, with her colleague Nisha (Aparna Nancherla) and graduate student Conner (Sam Richardson), have developed a revolutionary technology to transfer human consciousness to robot animal.
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Mabel uploads her consciousness into a robot beaver and sets off to thwart the mayor. Seeing the world from the animals’ perspective gives Mabel a unique point of view. Hoppers has jokes, chases, largeness of heart and solid science — not consciousness-switching with robot animals or flying shark assassins but the fact that beavers are the environmental engineers of the natural world.
The voice cast is wonderful, from Bobby Moynihan as the beaver king, George to Dave Franco as Titus, the prickly butterfly who becomes the insect king after Mabel accidentally kills his mum — the Insect Queen, played with terrifying grandeur by Meryl Streep.
The animals are delightfully delineated, from the spaced-out beaver, Loaf (Eduardo Franco) to Ellen (Melissa Villaseñor) the grumpy bear. The animation is lovely, with each of the animal and human characteristics clearly outlined. From the mayor’s grasping to Sam’s brilliance, Mabel’s fervour to Loaf’s stillness, and the different animal monarchs’ regality, it is all given marvellous life.
ALSO READ: ‘The Bride!’ movie review: Maggie Gyllenhaal’s glam-goth Frankenstein can’t hold its stitches
The “pond rules” ensure that the animals are not completely anthropomorphised — a sticky point in animation films where carnivores and herbivores hang together without even a sneaky licking of lips!
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Smart, funny, exciting, honest, and touching, Hoppers is the kind of film you can watch with the bachcha party and elders alike, with a happy grin. And then there is Diane of the red, red lips and sparkly white rotating teeth — yes, Hoppers boasts that level of detailing.
