By the end of the Mad Max cycle, we understand, Mad Max must no longer be "mad." Suddenly, the lone warrior of the wasteland is countenancing cute, resourceful kids, fighting cartoony villains (like the aforementioned, apparently unkillable Ironbar) and even playing the white knight. That last bit (the white knight act) is a critical part of the overall story arc: Max's step-by-step return to the world of "humanity," and, yes, it must exist. And as Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome kicks in with a jolt, the pop tune by Tina Turner promises a good, dark, pacey excursion into a world we've been to before, only on a grander, more epic, more edgy scale.īut audiences - especially those who are fans of the earlier films - may still end up upset or disappointed with this third film because it very obviously assimilates Mad Max into the Hollywood mainstream action mold. That's all really good stuff for the film reviewers to chew on and ponder, no doubt. Dealgood, The Collector, and Ironbar, and this element adds to the film's sense of fun, and wickedness.Ĭommendably, Thunderdome also treats this one-of-a-kind world with a witty - but not cheesy- sense of humor, at least starting out.Įven the film's dialogue in the first act is unexpectedly, unremittingly sharp. These retainers possess memorable names such as Scrooloose, Dr. These include the sexy villain, Aunty Entity (Tina Turner), and her strange, colorful entourage. On the one hand, Beyond Thunderdome is a movie that vividly creates a unique and highly-cinematic world - Bartertown - and then memorably populates that environ with an entourage of fascinating, flamboyant characters. I understand the reasons for both reactions, and in some ways, Beyond Thunderdome is a sharply schizophrenic film. Critics, including Roger Ebert, praise the third film extravagantly, whereas audiences seem markedly less enthusiastic about this 1985 effort. Interestingly, critics and audiences tend to be sharply divided on the (for now.) final entry in the pantheon, Beyond Thunderdome. The Road Warrior was one of those rare theatrical experiences (not unlike The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Last House on the Left) in which actively-engaged audience members felt there was a real danger they might be see something truly unpleasant, or decorum-shattering, on screen. When I reviewed that film here on the blog back in 2008, I called it "one of the ten great action films of the last thirty years," and highly commended " the aura of danger, anxiety and uncertainty" in the landmark, " startling" effort. Like many, I prefer the middle part of the trilogy, the absolutely unsentimental, unrelenting The Road Warrior, by a wide margin. Yet Mad Max fans still debate with passion which film in the action-packed trilogy from George Miller (and the late Byron Kennedy) remains the finest. It's a terrific story/character arc, played ably and movingly across three very strong and memorable genre films. ![]() There is hope. Civilization starts again, and it lights the way home for the road warriors. ![]() Max loses much of his humanity in this world, but manages to hold onto a kernel of it.įinally - at last - the process of re-building and achieving redemption begin in earnest in Beyond Thunderdome, both for the individual man, Max, and for all of mankind too. The law fails. Nobody trusts anybody on the desolate highways of the future, and survival - not morality - proves paramount. Then, in the absence of law and morality arises much chaos and violence ( Road Warrior). ![]() In terms of narrative structure, the three Mad Max films of the 1970s-1980s ( Mad Max, The Road Warrior and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome ) chart an interesting and highly artistic parallel trajectory.īoth human civilization itself and Max's original persona as a decent family man collapse at approximately the same time, in the violent, emotionally-searing Mad Max. Before he was simply Hollywood's modern-day "Mad Mel," Australian actor Mel Gibson was genre cinema's Mad Max, a futuristic hero and "man with no name" dwelling in an apocalyptic, and then, finally, post-apocalyptic world.
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