Anya Taylor-Joy’s The Queen’s Gambit Follow-Up Proves Her $174 Million Flop Deserved Better

The trailer for Anya Taylor-Joy’s latest TV show begins with a voiceover, asking “how can someone so small cause so much trouble?” This line perfectly summarizes most of Taylor-Joy’s best movie and TV show roles, with the actor regularly playing characters who are underestimated. Her breakout role in The Queen’s Gambit was perfectly cast, highlighting Taylor-Joy’s talent for portraying complex characters who can convey multiple expressions with just one look. Since then, while she has appeared in some hits, none have come close to the success of The Queen’s Gambit, which remains a Netflix masterpiece with 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.

That said, Taylor-Joy’s badass crime series, Lucky, looks set to come close, with the actor in the titular role as a con artist who goes on the run after a heist goes wrong. Pursued by both the FBI and a crime boss, Lucky must rely on her problem-solving skills and intelligence to survive, just as The Queen’s Gambit‘s Beth Harmon does. Still, the trailer for Lucky is drastically different from the world of competitive chess, and instead resembles a movie that was almost the TV show’s polar opposite. The soundtrack, visuals, and theme are much more similar to Furiosa, in which Taylor-Joy made her action debut

Anya Taylor-Joy’s Lucky Armstrong Is Surprisingly Similar To Furiosa

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Anya Taylor-Joy has played characters with action scenes before, like The New Mutants‘ Magik. However, Magik often teleports without the intense combat scenes shown in Furiosa, which is grittier, with high-octane action that feels much more visceral. At first glance, the slight and fragile-looking actor was an unusual choice to replace Charlize Theron, whose screen presence and layered portrayal of the character made Furiosa the standout in Fury Road, even outshining Max. However, like Beth Harmon, Furiosa communicates with her eyes, and passes unnoticed until she needs to command attention.

With Taylor-Joy’s portrayal of Furiosa being one of the best performances in the Mad Max franchise, and the actor stealing all of her scenes in The Gorge, she is becoming one of the best rising action stars of the past decade. Playing Lucky Armstrong adds a new set of skills to Taylor-Joy’s action resume, while also feeling like a version of Furiosa for the modern day rather than in a post-apocalyptic future. With Lucky on the run, the show has plenty of car chase scenes during which she must think several steps ahead and escape her situation above all else.

Like Furiosa, Lucky is on a journey of redemption. Furiosa, having been stolen from her family, had to rise through Immortan Joe’s ranks to survive, before eventually getting her own means of escape via the War Rig. Similarly, Lucky was raised to manipulate everyone around her, but has been building her own way out of this lifestyle. Both characters have their morally-gray moments, becoming ruthless in the name of survival, but although we saw Furiosa redeemed, Lucky’s fate has not yet been revealed.

Furiosa Was A Great Movie & Deserved Much Better At The Box Office

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Considering the many scathing reviews and thinkpieces about the way in which the Furiosa movie failed the Mad Max franchise, it may surprise people to see that its Rotten Tomatoes scores tell a very different story. Despite Furiosa barely breaking even at the box office, the movie has an impressive 90% critics rating, with an 88% audience rating. Unfortunately, Fury Road was an outlier, Mad Max has never been a major box-office hit, and the character spinoff was released when even blockbusters were attracting fewer crowds. None of these make Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga a bad movie.

The one significant and justified criticism of Furiosa was the use of CGI, which, when compared to the gear-grinding and bone-crunching effects in Fury Road, looked dreamlike and fake. The story itself, along with Taylor-Joy’s take on the road warrior and Chris Hemsworth’s gloriously deranged performance as the villainous Dementus, was compelling. The factors that made Furiosa fail at the box office were matters of circumstance, while the movie itself deserved better, both then and now.

Release Date

May 24, 2024

Runtime

149 minutes

Director

George Miller