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Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa was absolutely the best part of George Miller’s 2015 series restarter Mad Max: Fury Road. She was a powerful and well developed character that drove the plot more than the ostensible lead and in overcoming her on screen oppressors with determination, courage and intelligence cemented herself as contemporary cinema’s newest feminist icon. It is totally right that this next film centres on her, confirming the passing on of the baton from Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy’s iconically loco road warrior.

It is a bit of a shame that her movie still has to have a man’s name in the title but isn’t that mainstream Hollywood in a nutshell; there are great female heroes in action films, reflecting broadening audiences demands, but as conversations such as whether the new James Bond should be a woman continue, their time in the limelight still hasn’t brought them out from under a male shadow. Still, here we have the return of the fantastic Furiosa, still fighting to survive and succeed in a violent patriarchal wasteland.

Making this a prequel may not have been the best idea though. I understand that Miller and co-writer Nick Lathouris had her backstory all laid out having prepared it to develop her character for the previous film, but knowing precisely how she got snatched from her idyllic homeland, ending up in the employ of a tyrannical, misogynist post apocalyptic overlord, doesn’t actually add all that much. There is a whole other antagonist who I suspect wasn’t part of the pencilled in history until they realised that this movie would need to give her some level of closure but any sense of victory still evades her. We found out last time that her entire motivation came from a desire to return home and that said location no longer existed so much of what happens here feels like filler.

As a result, rather than bringing any new narrative satisfaction this new film just steals away any we had before. Miller has picked at the story he set up in Mad Max: Fury Road and where it was all neat he has made it bleed again. As we are at the moment the wound remains open and it might have been better if he’d just left well alone. Where we now leave this, admittedly still iconic character, is largely a place of failure. Sure she has planted some seeds with her besting of the man who destroyed her life but she hasn’t got what she wants and is still a long way off from a satisfying denouement.

Just like Furiosa where she is left here though, I still have hope and maybe my land of abundance is still out there. Simply put, Miller needs to make another one. Placed as the middle part of a new trilogy this movie will work. That will make all of this interesting context for a broader story still to be told. Give Furiosa her ending rather than just expanding her beginning. Let this whole thing heal again.

With this movie Miller is clearly trying to make things more epic and bringing back Theron (and Hardy’s Max if you like, whatever) to wrap it all up could do that. That might make this desert set war chronicle the rival to Dune the director clearly wants it to be. Anya Taylor-Joy’s portrayal of a younger Furiosa is great but she does not have the quiet power and intensity that Theron gave her and that is the version we need to be left with once more.

Taken purely on its own merits, Furiosa: a Meh Meh Saga is fine. I know some people are hailing it as another masterpiece but I didn’t think this epithet fitted the last one and the action scenes are not as spectacular here. Fury Road benefited from its lack of story to some extent too. All of the iconography created in that one is also just recreated here. It has similar quirks that are nice to see and Chris Hemsworth is having a great time moving away from his Thor persona, although Bad Times at the El Royale did this better six years ago even without the false nose. Certainly he fits into this world better than Tom Burke who appears to be from a totally different movie.

Ultimately I love that Mad Max has been further removed from the Mad Max films, he was fun but his time is done. Really confirming this tale of cars, trucks, sweat, fire, guns and explosions as a female led story is kind of wonderful but for me there is work still to be done.

Come on George, make Furiosa Free. There’s your title right there.