I've only seen the first two and it was pretty fun, we'll see how I feel about the rest.

Alan Moore also borrowed from its ending for Watchmen.

But it's an indy passion project, right? Low budget, high energy, with a clear vision for a post-apocalyptic landscape.

Road Warrior is the better film.

And by all indications Fury Road is just awesome. I hope to see it soon.

If you look at the closest thing to a definitive source of great films we have, you will see that Mad Max 2 is the only film in the series on the list.

www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_all1000films.htm

First off, I want to make sure that you watched the original Australian dialogue version of the film, not the God awful American accented, dubbed version? The later is so utterly terrible that it will honestly make a lot of difference to your enjoyment of the film, so I just want to make sure.

Assuming that you did indeed watch the version with the original Australian dialogue, then you have indeed watched a classic movie. Obviously the film is pretty low budget and, as you no doubt noticed, it's not actually a post-apocolyptic movie in the same way as the other 3 films in the franchise are. Mad Max is sorta pre-post-apocalyptic, with much of "modern" society still there, but looking very threadbare and tired, with the writing clearly visible on the wall for the end of society as we know it. I guess "dystopian" is perhaps a better word to describe this film, given that the widespread lawlessness we see in the movie is set "a few years from now."

What I personally love about George Miller's direction and story is that it's operatic and fearlessly melodramatic. There are plenty of action-packed car chases, great stunts and lashings of gut-wrenching violence, with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters and performances at every turn. However, there are also some lovely, subtle moments and meta-commentry in the direction. For example, in just the opening few minutes of the film we have the opening sequence set on Anarchie Road (as in Anarchy Road) and we also have an MFP officer spying on a pair of naked lovers through his rifle's telescopic sight, which teases the audience with the possibility that he might be preparing to shoot them. This immediately generates an air of tension and a sense that something is very wrong here -- even with the good guys. I could go on, but make no mistake, for all it's stunts and spectacle, Mad Max is a thinking man's action film.

Something else that I love about the film is that it absolutely revels in the gloriously perverse and unhinged nature of the Toecutter's gang of biker hoodlums. It also revels in the way in which this plays against the poker-faced demeanor of Max's classic anti-hero. In this respect (and with the operatic editing and totally over the top score by Brain May adding to it) Mad Max is kind of like a futuristic Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, only with a weird and unsettling arthouse cinema vibe to it.

And it is a very unsettling film, I think, with an anxious, uneasy quality and a hard hitting, visceral punch. But it's precisely the tension between that inherent, unsettling weirdness and the two opposing sides of Max Rockatansky's character -- warm-hearted family man and ruthless, cold-blooded cop -- that makes the film so damn watchable. This tension is illustrated brilliantly in the opening sequence, when Max plays "chicken" in his car, against the hoodlum known as the Nightrider, resulting in the latter's death. The overall impression that this scene gives the viewer is that Max is pretty much as psychotic as those he battles on the roads.

Now, I'm not saying that Mad Max is flawless -- in particular, the nightclub scene where the seductive chanteuse sings at Goose about how she loves "motorbikes and leather men..." makes me cringe so badly that my toes almost curl right through the soles of my shoes. Likewise, some of the acting in the film is hardly of an oscar winning standard. Yet, for all it's faults and technical shortcomings, the film is (as I said in my earlier post) "some kind of low budget, almost arthouse masterpiece."

The original.




Not knowing anything about the rest of the series, all I was able to glean from the first film was that society appears to be more provincial and lacking in industrial capability now, as nothing newly built or constructed can be seen anywhere in the film. Everything is recycled or restored, whether cars or re-purposed buildings.




I see the first few minutes of the film clearly informing the viewers that government is too soft on crime, a theme echoed several times throughout the film and answered by what Max becomes at the end. Thus the joke of a cop looking like he's ready to snipe the criminal being pursued, but instead using his scope to spy on the couple, having no intention of actually doing his job correctly.

Still, as meaningful as that moment is, the rest of the film is light on thought of any kind. Heck, there's no central conflict to the story until the last twenty minutes of the film. What goal is the protagonist trying to attain? He says the road is making him crazy, but he seems decidedly happy and unconflicted when at home. Max doesn't really have anything to do in this film until the very end.



Elements of the Western genre are certainly present, and the gang is certainly perverse, but I didn't see anything new about that. It's just Reefer Madness for a new (and Australian) generation. And I couldn't stand the score, which was over-the-top in places and completely out of place in others. I was so relieved to learn that it wasn't THE Brian May, but rather some guy I'd never heard of before.




I'm just not convinced Max had much of a character at all. I wonder how much of this comes through more in hindsight after watching the other two films.



I just don't see it. But if you're getting all of that out of the film, then more power to you.


I'll still check out the second one. It sounds like it's leaps and bounds better.

Got in a double feature tonight, with Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1980) and Robocop (1987).

Robocop? It might not seem like it fits the criteria at first, but the entire point of the film is that it's taken the greed and corruption of our society and let it run amok to the point that society is utterly devastated except for those at the very top. There's actually a very Farenheit 451 feel to it in that everyone is so complacently distracted by cheerful television to notice. So I count it. Fun film, though certainly not deep. I enjoy returning to it on occasion.

As for Road Warrior, I definitely enjoyed it more than the original and agree that it feels like a completely separate entity. I almost feel like I should have watched Road Warrior first and then gone back to see the original out of pure curiosity. Still not a film that I loved, but it was done very well on all accounts; I respect it.