Released: 1981(Australia), May 1982(USA)
Director: George Miller
Run Time: 94 minutes
Rated: R
Cast:
Mel Gibson: Max
Bruce Spence: The Gyro Captain
Vernon Wells: Wez
In 1979, Australian director George Miller released Mad Max, a post-apocalyptic action film. In Australia, Mad Max was a smash hit. It was unlike anything that anybody had ever seen before. With a chaotic world where the roads are ruled by motorcycle gangs, Mad Max gave us a look into a future where resources like oil and gas are scarce and governments are basically non-existent. It was unusual because it didn’t really look what many people expect a post-apocalyptic world to look like. The film featured some of the most incredible action sequences and stunts the world had ever seen. The problem: It didn’t really receive much attention outside of Australia. The movie did give us one thing though: Mel Gibson. This was the movie that kick-started Gibson’s film career. With the success of Mad Max in Australia, George Miller went ahead with the sequel: Mad Max 2. Released in the United States under the name The Road Warrior, the sequel eventually became a major success, and Mel Gibson became a household name. We can thank Gibson for some of the greatest movies ever made: The Lethal Weapon movies, Air America, and Braveheart, a film which Gibson also directed.
Wandering the wastelands, we find “Mad” Max on the run from a band of marauders out for his fuel. After escaping them, he runs into an eccentric gyro pilot(Bruce Spence). Being informed that there is a lone refinery still operating in the area, Max heads to the refinery only to find it under assault by a massive army of marauders, similar to the ones he encountered earlier. Making a deal with a dying man, Max finds his way into the refinery, where he makes a deal with the leader of the people living there. The deal: Finding a vehicle to haul a tanker full of fuel in exchange for some of that gas for his car. The story is pretty straightforward with very few surprises. It’s not a particularly complicated plot. The first movie wasn’t complicated either, but The Road Warrior doesn’t take very long to get things going. From the opening montage which features some footage from Mad Max, we learn that Max lost his family to the motorcycle gangs and became a vengeful loner as a result. As a sequel, you really didn’t need to know what happened in the first movie to enjoy this one.
Here’s a little history about this film: The original name of the movie in Australia was Mad Max 2. When it was brought over to the states, however, it didn’t get the attention it deserved. Why? The original film didn’t get a proper release. Nobody knew anything about Mad Max, and here we were with a sequel to a movie that we never got. That was its initial release. So, George Miller and the movie studios opted to change the name to The Road Warrior. That had a much larger impact, and as a result, people started to pay more attention to the original. Mad Max was released to mixed reviews and wasn’t terribly popular. When The Road Warrior was released under the new name, it was a moderate success.
Now, it is very rare for a sequel to outdo the original film in every possible way, and The Road Warrior did it. While the plot is fairly simple, what really makes this movie amazing is its action sequences. It’s brutal, but it is also incredible thrilling at the same time. While the characters aren’t overly interesting with the exception of Mel Gibson’s and Bruce Spence’s characters, its the action where the movie definitely delivers. It’s basically nonstop. The car chases are without a doubt some of the best sequences I’ve ever seen in a movie. Most of the car sequences in action films today pale in comparison. Why? George Miller didn’t have access to complex visual effects the way today’s filmmakers do. He had to rely on actual stunts. He didn’t even use miniatures. What you saw in The Road Warrior is exactly what you got. The crashes and the explosions are all done for real. The final car chase in the film is the pinnacle of car chases. Nothing comes close.
Mad Max was a great movie, but it suffered from having too many slow points. But the action, and the stunts were spectacular. The Road Warrior takes the best elements of its predecessor and amplifies it by a hundred. Because of the shift in focus to the action, we have one of the greatest movie sequels ever. The Road Warrior is by far, the best Mad Max movie in the trilogy. The less said about Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, the better. It wasn’t terrible, but it suffered from being nearly identical to the second film, only not as brutal as the PG-13 rating for that film proves. If there’s a real down-side to The Road Warrior, its that the majority of the characters really aren’t that interesting. We have the good guys that are guarding the refinery: They’re pretty generic. The villains are…well, dressed like bad guys. The one villain is Vernon Well’s Wez, who’s a complete lunatic. He’s fun to watch. The rest of them? Cannon fodder, or in this case, car fodder. Mel Gibson is simply fantastic as Max. He’s not totally a hero, he’s mostly out for himself, but when the chips are down, he’s ready for the long haul. Bruce Spence is an interesting actor. He plays some fairly unique characters and his gyro pilot is particularly strange. While he seems to be out for himself, we do see that when he witnesses the brutality of the marauders, he does have a bit a conscience. He does seem a bit goofy at times, but I like him all the same. My final verdict for The Road Warrior is a 10/10. Very few sequels are better than the original.
I chose to review The Road Warrior because a new Mad Max film is on the way. Mad Max: Fury Road is directed by George Miller and will be released to theaters in the summer of 2015. Featuring Tom Hardy in the legendary role of Max Rockatansky, Mad Max: Fury Road is neither a sequel nor remake. It’s a reboot and if this new trailer is any indication, Fury Road is going to be a hell of a ride. Here is the official trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road:
Are we excited yet?