Mad Max Trilogy (1979-85)

Mad Max (1979)

Dir. George Miller

As enjoyable as the first Mad Max film is on its own, in hindsight it works better if you look upon it as an extended prologue to the more entertaining sequel, The Road Warrior (1981), where the world is no longer on the verge of going to shit, as it is here, but has actually tipped over and fell face-first into it.

It has the feel of a B-Movie, but the on-the-road carnage is much better than what you'd normally get in that kind of commercial venture, and it's not without some black humour to keep it from sinking under the weight of its own gloomy subject matter.

The crew is to be applauded for making the scenario believable. Max (Mel Gibson), however, is kind of boring as a family man/highway interceptor. It's not until he gets his 'mad' on that he becomes interesting.

Mad Max: The Road Warrior (1981)

Dir. George Miller

An emotionally damaged but toughened Max exists now as a kind of extension of the wasteland environment in which he moves. But he's just one small part of the equation.

In a world wherein construction has become a process whereby new things are bodged together from old things, for some folks the gasoline that powers their machines is a commodity that's more precious than life itself. A noble purpose is something that tends to get you killed. Max finds a purpose.

Even though it's occasionally rough around the edges, Road Warrior is the quintessential wasteland flick. Its full of great atmosphere and the chosen locations are convincing.

Max's second adventure has a kind of timeless quality. Gibson isn't what I'd call a great actor, but his character nevertheless drives the narrative forward in an engaging manner, enabling me to accept and enjoy spending time in the ridiculous fictional realities without much questioning.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

Dirs. George Miller / George Ogilvie

Max, at the beginning of the film in need of a haircut or at the very least a better wig, has reason to go to Bartertown, a 'civilised' den of trade, corruption and slavery that's overseen by Tina Turner's monstrous shoulder pads.

Once he arrives the film nosedives directly into (pig) shit - that's about five minutes into the running time. If you stick with it you'll be introduced to an alternative pocket of civilisation that's a nice contrast but equally as badly written on almost every other level. The truth is that Beyond Thunderdome is a turd. If you were to make a fan-edit of the good bits, it'd be about ten minutes long in total.

Of the few things that worked, what I liked most was how the "membered" oral history of the younger characters had become a kind of prophecy/myth structure, held together despite its obvious flaws by a binding of blind hope that was directed towards something lost to time, something half-remembered and half invented; but it's not enough to offset the cringey nature of the frame into which it's placed.

The film continues to go nowhere fast, failing to avoid self-parody and even managing to make me think of it as a kind of post-apocalyptic Flintstones more than once, before reverting to an action-filled ending that worked previously but this time barely does the job. It sucks.