Mad Max Revisited

In which I revisit a previously explored topic with fresh eyes and an open mind.

So now that Age of Ultron's been put to the test at the box office, there's a bit of a lull before the next big movie comes out.  That movie, as it turns out, is Mad Max: Fury Road, which looks all kinds of awesome from where I'm standing.  It's been a few years since I've seen any of the Mad Max movies, though, so I thought that it'd be worth going back over them one at a time to get a better idea of where Fury Road is coming from.

When oil shortages lead to an dystopian energy crisis, nomadic biker gangs begin roaming the highways, terrorizing the population and raiding cities for whatever's on hand.  Only the highway patrolmen stand between them and absolute chaos.  With things getting increasingly out of hand, however, Max Rockatansky is thinking of retiring.  But when the gangs murder his wife and child, he'll stop at nothing to get his revenge.

Looking back on it now, I can hardly  connect the dots between the first Mad Max and 1981's The Road Warrior.  Sure, the dystopian dressings are there from the beginning, but only barely, and only as a visual shorthand so that filmmakers didn't have to justify biker gangs overrunning police on such broad scale.  Take away its thinly-used back story and you have a movie that's virtually indistinguishable from any other late 70's car flick.

While not a bad movie by any means, it's shockingly conventional, especially when you consider that the franchise was only two years away from single-handedly cementing what a post-apocalyptic landscape is supposed to look like in the popular mindset.  It has fast cars; it has protracted chase scenes; it has explosions.  It's all pretty by the numbers, save for an unsettlingly young Mel Gibson, who - let's face it - is the only real draw for this movie outside of the series that it spawned.

As far as action flicks of the era go, however, you could really do a lot worse.  Gibson is perfect in the role of Max.  The revenge plot of the last few scenes is a well-handled climax to the more than serviceable build-up of the previous hour's worth of movie.  Plus a few of the chase scenes - particularly the first and last - are actually pretty memorable.  It's an acceptable, if generally out-dated, action movie that's pretty much a worse version of any number of Fast and the Furious sequels.

Rating:  5.5/10

Buy on BluRay:  Only if you want to own all the Mad Max movies.

So what do you think of mad max?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Join the Filmquisition on Twitter (@Filmquisition) or by subscribing to this blog.