Driving Me Mad

Year: 1985

Director: George Miller & George Ogilvie

Cast: Mel Gibson, Tina Turner, Bruce Spence

Run Time: 1 hour 47 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Several things happened during the four year gap between the release of Mad Max 2: Road Warrior and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, things which had an immense impact on its production:

1) George Miller was trying to get an original film off the ground, but the studio encouraged him to sauter that plot (of an adult discovering a Lord of the Flies-type group of children in the wild) onto a Mad Max storyline.

2) George Miller's producing partner Byron Kennedy passed away in a helicopter accident while scouting locations for the film.

3) The early 80's.

These first two resulted in a shattered, distracted auteur splitting his time on the film with co-director George Ogilvie, deigning only to direct the action sequences and leaving the character stuff to the man behind The Feds: Deception. The third resulted in...

Tinadome.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome opens with a shot straight out of Lawrence of Arabia - a bleak, irradiated wasteland of sand and dust being cut through by a camel-driven wagon. The wagon is attacked by a pilot (Bruce Spence of The Road Warrior, playing a different aeronautically-inclined character) and out tumbles out Max (Mel Gibson), an ex-cop and desert wanderer with a truly unfortunate case of Braveheart hair.

Every man dies. Not every man really dyes.

Following his stolen equipment, Max comes upon Bartertown, a desert shantytown ruled by the flashy and emphatic Aunty Entity (Tina Turner). Their primitive government is literally run on crap - their energy is provided by the excrement of pigs in the subterranean methane dungeon known as the Underworld. This area is led by MasterBlaster (Angelo Rossitto & Paul Larsson), a smart, tiny man who combines his powers with a huge, brute warrior with an iron mask by riding on his back.

Aunty hires Max to assassinate Blaster by brawling with him in the Thunderdome, Bartertown's cage match dispute system. Then a whole new story starts, whereupon Max stumbles across the aforementioned Lord of the Flies kidlets, a tribe who have taken residence in a nearby gorge and the only ample water source in the wasteland. Upon his arrival, they take him for the missing leader, Captain Walker, and beg him to take them to Tomorrow-Morrow Land, which is one of their many irritating slang words, this one referring to the gleaming cities of the past, which they still believe to exist.

Max reluctantly tags along to help them find a better home, though, honestly, their camp seems like a McFreaking paradise compared to the barren dystopia surrounding them. Thus begins the most conflicting sequence in the film as it shifts between Goonies-style slapstick antics and the requisite nailbiting car chase sequences.

It's like a cross between Fast & Furious and The Magic School Bus.

It's terrifically uneven, spasmodically twitching between both modes and reducing the high stakes of the previous films to useless tinder. The frustrating thing is that, when the film is good, it's genuinely superb. The closing chase is an exciting, natural extension of the tanker chase from Road Warrior, pitting a herd of cars against a runaway train, and the bungee-jumping acrobatic fight in the Thunderdome is an unforgettable mixture of camp and overzealous intensity.

But it takes ages for the film to return to the series' characteristic automotive splendor (in fact, I don't believe we even see a car in use until well past the hour mark), and the adventure sequences with the tribe of children are achingly over-the-top. When they're busying themselves with wacky antics like hitting people with frying pans and cheerily misunderstanding simple things, I half expect Robin Williams to come bursting in on a skateboard.

This inanity permeates the rest of the film, spurred on by the spirit of 1985. Quips and awful puns overpopulate the film like a scourge of locusts, not too deep to truly disable the films capacity to be great, but enough to dampen its potency somewhat.

They should leave the puns to me, where I can handle them safely and responsibly, with a mane-imum of casualties.

But despite its lumpen tonality, Beyond Thunderdome is still a Mad Max picture, and as such it revels in its weirdness. The film throws itself into its aesthetic, which contains a couple more dreadful matte paintings than I daresay we're used to, but is still as electric and iconic as ever. There might be a couple dozen more monkeys than usual, and some of the characters would be more at home in a Western from 2 of the 3 writers of Scary Movie, but it occupies exactly the same maniacal space that makes the Mad Max films so special.

The costume designer works with the delirious ferocity of a heroin-addicted crack rock, tossing several be-mohawked leather daddies, a dwarf with a Noh mask backpack, a mechanic in a leather speedo, and just about everything that was available on short notice from the costume department of the damned.

Now Appearing in: Your Nightmares.

The most interesting thing about Beyond Thunderdome is that, perhaps because it is already doing so much, it also has the most to say out of the Mad Max trilogy. Behind its juvenile nonsense and crackling action sequences, the film is an allegory about the future and how we shape it. The future of yesterday (ie. glittering skyscrapers and a metropolitan utopia) is gone, and it is up to the children to find out what's next for humanity. 

Bartertown has its own rough-and-tumble semblance of society, but those irradiated adults are the product of the same culture that destroyed itself in the first place. Their moral decay is no surprise to anyone, but The Lost Boys/Girls are wholly new. They know nothing other than the wasteland, and they alone hold the last spark of hope for humanity.

Mad Max might be their savior for the time being, but they're the ones who - if anyone can manage to do it - can heal the world. He's just a visitor. They don't need another hero, because there's nothing left to save. And that's beautiful.

Also, I bet you didn't think I could work that lyric into a thoughtful analysis.

Peace.

TL;DR: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is tonally uneven but nevertheless thematically and aesthetically valuable.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1064
Reviews In This Series
Mad Max (Miller, 1979)
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (Miller, 1981)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (Miller & Ogilvie, 1985)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015)

Fast And Furious

Year: 1981

Director: George Miller

Cast: Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston

Run Time: 1 hour 34 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

True legends are born, not made.

I'm holding on to that. Because otherwise I might beat my head against the wall in envy at George Miller, an Australian medical doctor who, with no formal film schooling, managed to create an iconic film franchise of astonishingly increasing returns, make a star out of Mel Gibson, and continue to make revelatory action pictures well beyond retirement age, along with a series of inexplicably successful children's films.

How can I possibly believe that this career just came from working hard? He must have been born with it.

Or maybe it's Maybelline.

The source of today's undue rage is Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, which is not only a terrific action film, but a terrific sequel, vastly improving upon the innovative low-budget cult gem Mad Max, released a scant two years earlier. 

Following the titular Max (Mel Gibson) after the death of his wife and son at the hands of a murderous motorcycle gang catalyzed his transition from Calm Max, The Road Warrior launches us headfirst into the apocalypse. Max is a lonely nomad. With only his dog, Dog, for company, he wanders the barren wasteland of Australia in search of precious gasoline for his car, the last of the V8 Interceptors, which is totally a big deal because cars (Herbie: Fully Loaded, anyone?).

During his quest for Black Fuel, he stumbles upon The Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence), a whirligig pilot whom he takes captive and reluctantly befriends. After attempting to steal some oil from a car he watched get attacked by Marauders, he ends up taking the victim back to his camp back at an oil refinery in exchange for some of his company's supply. In the process, he becomes accidentally embroiled in a war between the refinery colony and the gang of leather-clad Marauders, led by the villainous Humungus (Kjell Nilsson) and his be-mohawked cronie Wez (Vernon Wells).

Wez (right) with his living motorcycle figurehead/leatherslave boyfriend. Gas might be in low supply, but evidently there is no shortage of hair dye in the apocalypse.

As you will discover, the common theme in this review will be "this awesome part of Mad Max is now bigger and better," but the most percussive and (literally) explosive of these elements are the newly ramped-up action sequences and the perilously strip-mined world they take place in. We first rendezvous with Max in the middle of a chase, the fiery denouement of which sees him sopping up precious gasoline from a bloody puddle.

This scene is but the first of many such moments that underscore the desperation, violence, and meager resources of the new world. In such an environment of loss and pain with many people attempting to cling to the last vestiges of old society (perhaps most notably in a shot where the Gyro Captain dabs his lips with a handkerchief after devouring the last morsels of a can of dog food), it is all too easy to slip into the mindframe of Max as his need to survive clashes with his instinct to help others.

This utterly real, utterly terrible world is fully realized with only a choice few setpieces scattered among the Outback, implying a vast and unforgiving world beyond. The grimy reality of The Road Warrior provides a dazzling venue for what are some of the most spectacular and kinetic car stunt sequences ever committed to film, and certainly the best to ever be seen by that point in 1981.

Wham, bam, thank you ma'am.

The slower sections of Road Warrior also serve meaningful purpose, etching in the particulars of the new world and elevating Max and his exploits to suitably lofty mythic proportions, and allowing the supremely talented actors to maneuver between the gritty and campy tones seamlessly but the real heart of the film is on the open road, where it works its unutterable magic. 

The climactic closing sequence is a high-density burst of nitro that puts pedal to the metal and slams the viewer into their seat, but it is nearly matched by every single such sequence in the film. Cars ram and lunge and claw and bite into one another in endlessly creative, unendingly appetizing ways that would make even the most accomplished mechanics' hearts quail in their breasts.

All of the masterpiece-level work that would be found 34 years later in Mad Max: Fury Road is present here in spades: the pulse-pounding music, the seemingly endless deluge of screeching metal, and the epically insane proportions of its own ambition. In fact, The Road Warrior is perhaps an even more impressive feat, proving that George Miller has always had creative genius flowing through him, and that he was capable of achieving it at any level of budget, anywhere in the world, with any technology available. The man is an automotive movie god, and there is a seat waiting for him in Valhalla.

You'll forgive me if I prefer Fury Road more, but the bounty of the past is unfit to scoff at. That film would not exist without this one, nor is this one deficient in any way, save a slightly more stately pace.

But cut him some slack, the dog needs to keep up with him.

It's a great shame upon my ancestors that I have come this far without extolling the virtues of the costuming, provided with gusto by Norma Moriceau. Piecemeal and strange though the costumes of Mad Max may have been, they could hardly hold a birthday candle to the roaring bonfire of Road Warrior.

George Miller's aesthetic blossoms into its fullest form here, dominating the screen with its unhinged fervor. With the film's profusion of wipes, staccato-framed action, and abundance of fetish leather, it's rather like Buster Keaton paying a visit to a Pride Parade, all jolting motion and exposed flesh.

Though each member of the Marauders and the refinery colony has their own uniquely compelling design (notable examples include the Feral Boy with his Niagara mullet, a blonde citizen with a ponytail reminiscent of Cindy Lou Who, and the pink-bearded bloke in his hot pink sports car), perhaps no single character in the history of cinema is more memorably costumed than Humungus himself.

All towering muscle and imposing bulk, Humungus' burned skull is hidden by a molded hockey mask that reduces him to a Michael Myers-type figure of blank-faced evil. And that's just about the only part of his body that isn't exposed. He... Well, take a look for yourself.

Please remember that this film was made by a straight man. Praise be to Australia.

Really, The Road Warrior is a very special, balls-to-the-wall, off-kilter masterpiece of homoerotic, ultra exotic, automatic, hydromatic, exhaustively creative, high-octane fun. Don't let it pass you by.

TL;DR: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is revelatory action cinema, an inspiring, electrifying entry in the genre.
Rating: 9/10
Word Count: 1164
Reviews In This Series
Mad Max (Miller, 1979)
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (Miller, 1981)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (Miller & Ogilvie, 1985)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015)

Drive Angry

Year: 1979

Director: George Miller

Cast: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne

Run Time: 1 hour 28 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

In the grand scheme of things, going from Mad Max: Fury Road directly to the original Mad Max is probably inadvisable. They are both utterly remarkable, but in very different ways. Though both bear the DNA of series auteur George Miller on their sleeve, the 2015 film is a showstopping spectacle of Hollywood filmmaking gone right whereas the 1979 original is a little miracle of low budget indie resources being stretched to the max.

Pun 100% intended.

Mad Max isn't keen on spelling out the logistics of its plot or universe, but here's what's going on, gleaned from franchise knowledge and details around the edges: Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) is an Australian policeman in the not too distant future. The Earth's resources are dwindling and his force are the lone defenders of Justice among the marauding anarchists that roam the streets. 

When a motorcycle gang led by the murderous Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) exacts revenge on another cop, Goose (Steve Bisley), he decides to exit the force for fear of becoming too embroiled in the terminal craziness of the pre-apocalyptic bedlam. However, his mind begins to change when the gang targets his wife Jessie (Joanne Samuel) and their young son Sprog (Brendan Heath).

Perhaps they've decided that he's an unfit parent, based on the evidence of that name.

Mad Max is a remarkable achievement, if not a truly great film. With a budget far south of $1,000,000, George Miller constructs an intimate, unknowably strange variation on our own world seasoned with some quite wonderful car chase action. 

Persons much more studied in the ways of action cinema than I have declared that the style of Mad Max held heavy influence over the nascent automotive genre, changing the game forever. I have virtually no experience with the history of car movies (Herbie the Love Bug, anyone?), so I will take their word for it. 

The film is full of motion. Clever, rhythmic editing keeps the action sequences humming along at a propulsive pace (and hides the most glaring limitations of the visual effects with great zeal) while the shots of bulging eyeballs that pepper the car crashes stamp the film with Miller's distinctive creative signature. Cars dodge and weave and smash and explode into screaming pieces with alarming frequency. It's pretty dang awesome, if I do say so myself.

I had to lash my fingers together with a belt to avoid typing a "Greased Lightning" joke here.

But apart from the rousing action pulled from the wisps of a budget, Mad Max holds an inimitable aesthetic, clear even in the first stirrings of what would soon become a franchise dominated by a strong visual presence. The heavy use of leather, combined with the arbitrary piecemeal of the set decoration and the biker gang's costumes form a mélange of winking lunacy and high camp. 

The world is populated with characters of all shapes and sizes, including some with numerous physical and mental disabilities that are in no way used as gimmickry, merely an accurate and tender representation of how the less fortunate among us have an equal drive to succeed in the midst of apocalyptic anarchy. Toss in a toddler with a gun and Jessie playing the saxophone on an idle evening, and you've got yourself an unforgettably idiosyncratic mise-en-scène.

I would be remiss if I neglected to mention dat ass.

The performances of the film are all equally skilled at tapping into the heightened reality of Mad Max, but young Mel Gibson is the anchor that holds the film together, providing an utterly believable character that is not only the ambassador of Peace and Justice and Other Good Stuff among the land, but a fallible and realistic human being.

It's harder to achieve this in leather pants than one might think.

Unfortunately the remarkable wealth of material extracted from an unforgivable dearth of resources is still subject to the deficiencies of many an independent film. The music, which is inevitably keyed a little too high in the mix, feels more like Night of the Living Dead catalogue music, too portentous for many of the scenes it accompanies, occasionally veering into loopy Batman-style interstitials. In addition, there are several technical inconsistencies with the lensing of the film, but they are too negligible to truly damage the narrative.

And I hate to say it, but in the beginning of the first act and the middle of the second, the plot gets a little saggy, deflating some of the air from the movie. And the third act culminates in the worst kind of deus ex machina. It's fortunately redeemed by the most stunning chase and subsequent revenge of the film (cementing the transition to Mad from what could only have been previously described as Calm Max), but a little disappointment goes a long way when it comes to dispatching the main villain of a story.

He didn't even get to cut any toes!

All in all, the production Mad Max is about as chaotic and slapdash as its universe, which lends it its driving, aggressively one-of-a-kind tone, but also reduces the film to slightly below a true classic of the form. Nevertheless, it is an inarguably fun movie that shouldn't be neglected when reviewing the franchise, though its best function is admittedly as a bridge to bigger and better things.

TL;DR: Mad Max is beholden to some low budget deficiencies but it more than makes up for that with exhilarating action and a bone-deep sense of fun.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 939
Reviews In This Series
Mad Max (Miller, 1979)
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (Miller, 1981)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (Miller & Ogilvie, 1985)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller, 2015)