A long gestation period proved fortunate for George Miller’s reboot-sequel. The postapocalyptic world he plunged viewers into was far more harrowing than that in the three previous films in the series. The narrative stakes were higher as were the technical ones, what with the advent of computer-generated effects since Miller’s last film, yet the director did not shrink from the challenge of delivering a thrilling high-stakes story as well as a bevy of real-time stunts that put anything a programmer could concoct to shame. The film’s biggest and most welcome surprise was that the title character was a supporting player and that the fierce Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) was the focal point, a woman who refused to be marginalized in a male-dominated world.