Mad Max (1979-2015) Series Retrospective

So as I’ve made it clear quite a few times already in the past year, I wasn’t really a ‘big’ fan of Mad Max: Fury Road when I first saw it in theaters. As I’ve also stated numerous times before, that doesn’t mean that I ‘hated’ the film. I just felt that the internet had severely overhyped the film for me prior to its release; that can happen sometimes and it’s also happened to me for films like Edge of Tomorrow and Deadpool. Obviously, though, not being a ‘huge’ fan of the film basically meant that I was in the minority as the internet went nuts over this film… though maybe a bit too much. You see, the internet has become much more critical in recent years towards film over certain practices like heavy CGI use and a deluge of sequels, reboots, and remakes. So whenever it comes across a film that a lot of film fans really, really love, it’s endorsed like it’s the only film worth watching that year. That’s exactly what happened when the new Mad Max was released and that actually kind of pissed me off because as soon as Fury Road came out, all I heard for weeks were people saying that it was the best film of the summer and that nothing else compared to it. And to put all of this into perspective, this was in May; the summer season had barely started and yet already a lot of people were acting like it was already done just because of one single film. As a result, I started to get rather mad (pun not intended) at the film for stealing the thunder of some of the other great summer films of 2015, including my favorite from not only that stretch but the whole year in general, Tomorrowland, which was released a week later and yet was completely overshadowed by the Mad Max hype train. Really the only advantage that Tomorrowland had over it was the fact that it did beat Mad Max at the box office that weekend… and then proceeded to gross more than $100 million less worldwide. How ironic that a film that promoted a more optimistic outlook on the future and challenged the craze of the post-apocalyptic genre got overrun by a film from the exact same genre it was addressing.

Well anyway, it’s been more than a year since the release of Fury Road and I’ll admit that I’ve calmed down in regards to me being angry at it for overshadowing its competition. While I may not have been a big fan of it like the rest of the internet, I did acknowledge some of its biggest strengths that made up for the issues that I had with the film, for the most part. But ultimately I vowed that I would give the film a second chance to see if I would warm up to it after a second viewing. This time, however, I decided to approach this situation differently compared to when I first watched it. When I first saw it, I hadn’t seen any of the previous Mad Max films beforehand. And while some did claim that watching the previous films first wasn’t necessary in order to enjoy Fury Road, I do feel that not doing so put me at a disadvantage going in because at that time I had never seen any of them and was generally unfamiliar with the franchise. So this time around, I’m doing this in a much more proper manner and watching all three of the original Mad Max films, starring Mel Gibson in the title role that was later taken on by Tom Hardy in Fury Road, before I do my second run-through of the newest film. So with that said, grab your flame-throwing guitars, your silver spray paint that makes you all shiny and chrome, and proclaim “Oh what a day! What a Lovely Day!” and join me as I look back upon the Mad Max film franchise, from the original 1979 classic that started it all to its even more beloved sequel to its not as beloved sequel and finally culminating with Fury Road.

MAD MAX (1979)

We begin in 1979 with the original film that started it all, Mad Max. It was the feature film debut of director George Miller, who prior to working on this film was a medical doctor in Sydney. This experience in the hospital would actually play a major part in the development of Mad Max as the injuries sustained by characters in the film were directly influenced by what Miller witnessed while on the job. As for the film itself, it’s a highly engrossing tale of revenge in which police officer Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) goes up against a vicious biker gang when they threaten both him and his friends and family. For a film that was shot on a low budget of under half a million dollars (and for the record, this is in terms of 1970’s Australian currency), it is very well-shot as it is full of great action sequences and also boasts an excellent production design based around its dystopian setting, something which of course would become a staple for the franchise. The landscapes of Australia also help serve as a perfect backdrop for all of this film’s chaotic action. Mel Gibson, in what was easily his break-out role, shines in the role of Max while Hugh Keays-Byrne, who of course would return to the franchise years later in another famous villain role, gives the film an excellent main villain in the form of the biker gang’s leader Toecutter. All in all, even though this film would eventually become fairly overshadowed in terms of scale by its follow-ups, it’s still an excellently directed, well-acted, and well-shot action thriller that fully immerses you into this world of madness.

Rating: 4.5/5

MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981)

Although the original Mad Max proved to be a worldwide critical/commercial success, it actually wasn’t that big of a hit here in the U.S., at least from a commercial standpoint, due to its distributor, American International Pictures, going through ownership changes at the time. It may have also had something to do with a disastrous ‘American dub’ that was instigated because the distributor supposedly feared that audiences wouldn’t understand the cast’s Australian accents. So as a result, when the sequel was released two years later, it was renamed to The Road Warrior and its connections to the previous film were underplayed in the marketing. Regardless, the film did perform much better domestically this time around, which is deservedly so because like its predecessor it is another excellent post-apocalyptic action flick. In a way, this is the same great visceral and sharply constructed storytelling of the original but now with the added benefit of a larger budget. Like before, the action is terrific, especially the big chase at the end. I can definitely see how much of an influence this had on Fury Road, not just through the similarities of their ‘chases’ but also because the film relies a lot more on visual storytelling than dialogue. Mel Gibson is once again excellent as Max and the film has its fair share of memorable side characters, from Max’s ally the Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence) to the imposing gang leader Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson) to Humungus’ highly intimidating and vicious lieutenant Wez (Vernon Wells). It could be said that The Road Warrior was the film that really catapulted the Mad Max franchise into its prime spot in pop culture history and I can definitely see why. This is one of those rare sequels that is not only as good as its predecessor but may arguably be better.

Rating: 4.5/5

MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME (1985)

To put it bluntly, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome is generally considered to be the weakest installment of the franchise. Part of it may have something to do with the fact that this wasn’t fully directed by George Miller, who instead shared co-directing duties with George Ogilvie, who had starred in the 1983 miniseries The Dismisssal that he produced, following the death of Miller’s producing partner Byron Kennedy in a plane crash in 1983. Miller ultimately ended up only directing the film’s action sequences. But the major reason why this film is generally not as well-received as the previous two films (as well as its subsequent sequel) is due to its second half. For the record, the film starts out pretty much exactly like what you would expect from a Mad Max film with its excellent production design and visceral proceedings, as Max finds himself in the sordid community of Bartertown. But then things change when Max ends up getting exiled from the town by its ruler, Aunty Entity (Tina Turner). He ends up coming across a group of children who believe that he was their ‘flight captain’ who was meant to take them to ‘civilization’. As many have pointed out, these kids are sort of like the ‘Lost Boys’ from Peter Pan and as a result of this, the film ends up taking on a much more kid-friendly tone. Now I’m not saying that I ‘hated’ this part of the film but the shift from the franchise’s traditional hardcore action to a more light-hearted and goofier adventure is still rather jarring. I should probably also mention that this is the only entry in the series to be rated PG-13.

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any ‘good things’ in this film. Gibson is of course excellent once again as Max and Tina Turner is actually pretty darn good in the ‘main villain’ role of Aunty Entity, even though the character is absent for a good chunk of the second half due to the change in plot. Of course there’s also a few noteworthy side characters as well, most notably the duo that is ‘Master Blaster’. Heck, even the kids do a pretty fine job acting-wise. The action is still pretty darn good as is the production design, with this film in particular having some pretty nice cinematography. As Doug Walker (AKA the ‘Nostalgia Critic’) pointed out in his review of Fury Road, this film may arguably even be the most quotable of the entire series, from Aunty Entity repeatedly calling Max a ‘raggedy man’ to the iconic ‘Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves’ rule of Bartertown’s Thunderdome arena. However, at the end of the day I do have to agree with the general consensus in that this is definitely the ‘weakest’ installment of the series. Don’t get me wrong I still think it’s a pretty darn good film on its own merits but as a Mad Max film it’s a bit underwhelming as a result of its jarring shift halfway through that introduces a plotline that doesn’t really mix with the whole storyline of Bartertown. Ultimately Beyond Thunderdome would end up being the final Mad Max film to feature Mel Gibson and it would be quite a while, three decades to be precise, before the series finally made its return to the big screen.

Rating: 3.5/5

And on that note, here’s the big one…

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015) - SECOND OPINION

And finally here we are at the latest installment of the Mad Max series, Fury Road. This was the first time that I had watched it since seeing it in theaters last May. And of course, as I’ve already mentioned, the first time I saw the film… I wasn’t ‘too big’ on it. I did like it and gave it a 4/5 rating in my original review but in some ways I felt that the internet had severely overhyped it. So for months I was left wondering why this film was being treated like it was the second coming of Christ. It got to the point where I admittedly was this close to using that scary word that I hate to use… ‘overrated’. But after waiting until last year’s awards circuit was over, I finally made sure to give it another chance. And fear not, internet folk… I warmed up to it the second time around. Granted, I still have some issues with it but I cannot deny the great things about this film. The action, predominantly done with practical effects in the modern age of CGI, is incredible and the production design is just as great as you would expect from a Mad Max film. This film also sports one hell of an amazing color palette as everything is bright and vibrant, very much different compared to most films in the post-apocalyptic genre. Charlize Theron is ‘Sigourney Weaver in Aliens’ level fantastic in the role of Furiosa, the ‘true’ main character of the film. But actually my favorite character in the film ended up being Nux, played by Nicholas Hoult. I thought Nux had the most interesting arc of them all; at first he’s a loyal War Boy of the Immortan who aspires to die historically on the Fury Road knowing that he’ll be ‘awaited in Valhalla’. But by the end, he ends up helping Max, Furiosa, and the Wives escape from Immortan Joe and I won’t lie… his death at the end of the film is a pretty damn emotional one.

But like I said, there are still a few minor issues that I have with the film and, like I said in my previous reviews of the film, they mainly stem from the writing. Now let me be clear, I’m not saying that this film needed a very complex plot. Not every film needs that and this film more than works without it because that’s obviously not the main intent of the film; instead it’s a visceral and kinetic action extravaganza and it very much succeeds in that regard. However, at the end of the day, this really is just ‘get from Point A to Point B… and then back to Point A again’ and Furiosa and Nux are the only major characters in the film that get any sort of major character development. While it’s really cool that Miller doesn’t make the Wives characters ‘damsels in distress’, to the point where even Splendid (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), the pregnant Wife, gets in on the action and is even killed off halfway through (got to give the filmmakers credit for having the guts to pull off a ballsy move like that), only a few of them get much to work with, namely Splendid and Capable (Riley Keough), the latter of whom ends up having a sweet little ‘romance’ with Nux. And as for Immortan Joe, while he may be quite the badass-looking villain, I wouldn’t really say that he’s a badass ‘villain’. Sure he’s got a great intimidation factor, primarily emphasized by both his menacing look and his ability to lead his army of devoted War Boys, but at the end of the day he really doesn’t do much in the film other than drive around, make some speeches, and have what is admittedly a pretty awesome and gnarly death scene. As far as the villains that Hugh Keays-Byrne has played in the Mad Max series are concerned, I think the better of the two is still Toecutter from the original Mad Max.

And then there’s Tom Hardy as Max and… I still think he’s quite underused in this. Now like The Road Warrior, Max is more of an ‘outsider’ in the plot. Furiosa really is the main character of the film and that’s a great thing. While there have unfortunately been some fanboys who have been rather critical of this, the film deserves a whole lot of kudos for its strong feminist themes. However, the film really should’ve just been called Furiosa: Fury Road because Max really doesn’t factor at all into much of this. And while I am a fan of Tom Hardy and I do think that he does a good job with what he had to work with, ultimately I prefer Mel Gibson’s Max as I feel that there was more to his version of the character, particularly in the first film. Hardy’s Max is more of a blank, and arguably even a bit emotionless, slate. But despite the issues that I just laid out, I’ll fully admit it… I did warm up to Mad Max: Fury Road upon re-watch. It really is one of those films that gets better with repeat viewings. George Miller was in his late 60’s when he made this; one of the most insanely awesome action films of all-time. That’s amazing. And even though I do have some minor issues with the writing, this film truly delivers when it comes to the action and production design. Simply put, it is a finely-tuned and gorgeous looking action thrill ride.

Rating: …Yeah, I’ll bump my original rating up to a 4.5/5

So to finish this post, here are my rankings of the four films.

4. MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME

3. MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR

2. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

1. MAD MAX

Be sure to sound off in the comments below with your own rankings of this iconic post-apocalyptic action franchise.