Starring: Mel Gibson, Tina Turner, Helen Buday, Frank Thring, Bruce Spence, Robert Grubb, Angelo Rossitto, Angry Anderson, George Spartels, and Edwin Hodgeman.

Directed By: George Miller and George Ogilvie

Rating: (1 ½ out of 5)

Max, still pretty cool, despite the general lameness surrounding him

Wow, this movie sucks. I mean, I remember not liking it much when it first came out, but watching it again just served to remind me how lame (and incoherent) it really was. Woof! I guess this movie really represents the turning point for George Miller from making movies about and for adults to making movies about and for kids (he’s the creative force behind the Babe movies, you know the pig… actually, now that I think of it, considering how prominent pigs are in MMBT, maybe this is his transition to making movies about and for pigs).

The first warning sign is when the movie starts up and you see that big PG-13 indication. Mad Max and the Road Warrior (RW) were both rated R, justifiably since they were gritty, violent movies. MMBT is Road Warrior lite, Road Warrior with its edge dulled so much that it doesn’t have an edge.

Well, enough ranting, let’s get on with the review…. MMBT starts off promisingly enough actually. Despite the lame, glossy, Tina Turner song playing over the opening credits, the first scene begins with a beautifully shot high-altitude look at a large swath of open desert. As the camera swoops closer, we see a large cart drawn by a team of camels. A plane flies low over the vehicle, so low that it knocks the driver out of his seat as the camels keep going. The plane circles back around, and we see the pilots: Jedediah (Bruce Spence) and his young son Jedediah, Jr. (Adam Cockburn). Jedediah the elder jumps out of the plane and on the vehicle’s seat (!) and spurs the camels to increase their pace, leaving the driver far behind. In the back of the vehicle, a small monkey throws possessions out the back. The man chasing after the cart finally stops. He removes his scarf, and we see Max with long, flowing hair, looking like he’s just come back from a tryout with Poison (or Whitesnake or another one of those 80s hair bands). Read the rest of this entry »

Starring: Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston, Max Phipps, Vernon Wells, Kjell Nilsson, and Emil Minty.

Directed by: George Miller

Rating: (4 out of 5)

Mel returns as the Road Warrior

I think most people prefer The Road Warrior (RW), a.k.a. Mad Max 2, to its predecessor, Mad Max (1979). Personally, I’m torn. I am usually most fond of whichever I’ve seen more recently. While Mad Max (MM) is definitely grittier and more viscerally powerful, the Road Warrior is more polished and professional. Mad Max is a great cult and independent movie, a triumph of style and skill over material limitations. Road Warrior is, simply, a GREAT action movie; in my estimation it ranks up there with The Terminator (1984) and Die Hard (1988) as one of the three best action movies of all time. (BTW, you can use this information to deduce my rough age. If I were older, I would probably single out Bullitt (1968) or the Wild Bunch (1969); younger and I’d be telling you the best included Independence Day (1996), the Rock (1996) or Con Air (1997) (which is another potential movie for review being set partially in an airborne prison).

RW starts off with a voice-over narration introducing us to Max’s (Mel Gibson) world. It basically summarizes the events of the first movie, and sort of clarifies the political situation in the world. I say “sort of” because actually the narration is little confusing about the time frame of things. It tells us that a world war has occurred, but it isn’t clear whether that happens before or after the events in the first movie. In any case, the setting of RW is much more desolate than in MM. Instead of being in a crumbling urban environment with permanent settlements, RW is set in “the wasteland,” a desert with nothing but roads, nomadic gangs, and sand and rock. Read the rest of this entry »

Starring: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Steve Bisley, Tim Burns, and Roger Ward.

Directed By: George Miller

Rating: (3 ½ out of 5)

Max before he’s mad

Although Mad Max is often called a post-apocalyptic movie, it really isn’t. It is more precisely a dystopian vision of the future, where civil society is under siege by increasing crime and disorder. The vision of future in Mad Max is in many ways similar to that presented in A Clockwork Orange (1971). Similarly, Mad Max’s view of the police as constrained by outdated rules and regulations echoes Dirty Harry (1971) and its sequels. Indeed, unlike A Clockwork Orange which ultimately uses this vision of the future to raise profound questions about the role of government in controlling free will and the tradeoffs involved in such a course, Mad Max, like Dirty Harry makes the more mainstream case for judicial retribution. Or does it? For a low budget movie, Mad Max is surprising challenging in terms of its core philosophy because although our hero does “triumph” in the end, he is also so emotionally wounded as to be dead inside. This is not your typical happy ending.

But people don’t watch or remember Mad Max for its social commentary. Mad Max is remembered, rightly, as a great action movie. Director George Miller imbues all the action sequences with a wild, frenetic energy. It is really a case of technique overcoming material limitations. Think of the scene where the biker gang chases down and terrorizes the young couple. There is almost no on-screen violence, but Miller creates a terrifying experience through sound and quick cuts of a car being destroyed. Read the rest of this entry »