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Simply A Masterpiece

Admirable film.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The dog dies. An utter disaster. The dog was the only good part of this 80s montage.

The Road Warrior, is easily one of my favorite movies of all time. The world has taken a drastic turn since Mad Max and we are now in a completely identifiable dystopian future. The action, characters, and story for this one are absolutely superb. It ranks in so many top ten lists of mine its criminal: 80's movies, action movies, science fiction movies, and best sequels.

Set in a remote Australian desert sometime after the collapse of society the few remaining people struggle to find fuel. Gangs of scavengers prey of those weaker than themselves and show no mercy. Not everybody who travels alone is weak though; former police officer Max drives his V8 Interceptor through this wasteland and those who attack him are likely to come off worse. One day he meets the 'Gyro Captain' the pilot of an autogyro who tells him of a nearby settlement where they have plenty of fuel… which they aren't keen to share. Max and the Captain see a gang attack members of the settlement who were trying to leave. Max helps one and takes him back but it is too late. It turns out the people there are planning to leave however they have nothing to pull their fuel tanker and little chance of getting past the marauding gang led by The Humungus. Max knows where there is a truck that can pull it so offers to get it in exchange for fuel. Once they have got the truck their problems are far from over; getting away from the gang will not be easy and they will suffer many casualties.This is the classic post-apocalyptic movie and to my mind is the best of the original trilogy. The action is turned up to eleven and even though the story is pretty simple it is still exciting from start to finish. The villains may look ridiculous with their punkish appearance but that is part of what makes them more entertaining than the more traditional biker gang of the original film. The action includes impressive car chases across the desert, shootings, explosions, fights aboard the speeding tanker and a child with a lethal metal boomerang! Little time is wasted on character development although Max is a great protagonist for this sort of film and The Gyro Captain and the Feral Kid provide plenty of entertainment. The acting is pretty solid although to be honest this is the sort of film one watches for the action not to see great thespians at work! Overall this is definitely worth watching if you want lots of great action.

'Max Mad 2' - renamed 'The Road Warrior' in some places to attract audiences who had not seen the original - this big budget sequel to the iconic Australian action film is often regarded as superior. With a greater dose of fast-paced action scenes, livelier supporting characters, creative costumes and loads of cool weaponry (metal boomerang!), the acclaim is understandable. And yet, for all the virtues afforded by the bigger budget, the story does not resonate as well on an emotional level. Whereas in Part 1, Mel Gibson's Max is a loving family man slowly transformed into a vigilante so twisted with hate that his heroism is questionable, here he is a gloomy vigilante from the get-go and with less than twenty lines of dialogue, it is hard to get under his skin. A surrogate father/son angle almost develops between Max and a feral boy, but the operative word is 'almost' with their scenes together often feeling like they had the potential for more. Between the imaginative archive footage montage at the start of the film that provides more context that the original ever did, all those creative motor vehicles and all the aforementioned virtues, this is a difficult film to dislike. Knowing though the lengths to which George Miller and his team were able to get us to sympathise with the morally ambiguous protagonist of Part 1, it is hard to not also yearn for the original here, less polished as it may be.