Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior)There's a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones". It's the kind of quote that comes to mind when I watch Mad Max 2, a.k.a. The Road Warrior in The United States. Although a sequel, Mad Max 2 is the first film in the series to allude to how society came to collapse: a world war over fuel. Nations crumbled, infrastructures were no more. Humanity has been reduced to scavenging the wastelands for food, for water, and even now--after everything that lead to this apocalypse--for fuel. The world has ended, but the battle rages on.
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Mad Max 2 is often regarded as one of the "best sequels" ever made, and with good reason. It is a lean, mean action movie with daring stunts and practical special effects, and a story that doesn't slow the action down one bit. Aside from some welcome exposition at the start of the film, there is very little of it otherwise. What we do get in this prologue is the legend of "Mad" Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson)--an ex-cop turned vigilante turned wasteland scavenger--as well as info about how the world came to this low point, which can be succinctly summed up as "war". As a sequel, it makes sense that Mad Max 2 would avoid lengthy explanation about who Max is. This turns out to be one of the film's greatest advantages, even for new audiences. See, the first Mad Max movie was essentially a revenge flick, set and made in Australia, and didn't really elaborate on just how society began to deteriorate. Max was a cop among other cops who were forced to resort to more extreme measures (e.g. violent car chases) to deal with a rampant flood of similarly extreme violence by gangs. Furthermore, after one gang sought revenge on Max by killing his family, Max took the law into his own hands, avenging the deaths of his loved ones. All of this left Max--as the narrator describes him--as an empty shell of a man. So despite being forced to opportunism, Max is just about the closest thing that passes for a hero in this brave new world, and others tend to view him this way, whether owing to his skill as a driver and a fighter or just his natural charisma. Consider how after Max threatens another scavenger--credited as "The Gyro Captain" (Bruce Spence), owing to his makeshift gyrocopter--at gunpoint, then kidnaps him and handcuffs him to a log, leaving him alone in the wilderness overnight, the Captain still believes that he and Max "make a great team". It says a lot about how values have shifted after the end of civilization. Max becomes heroic largely due to his competence...if not his insane propensity for self-destructive action, hence his moniker: "Mad Max". What's ironic, then, is that--like the saying goes about "greatness being thrust upon others"--Max finds himself forced to choose to either help a group of people defending themselves against a pack of marauders looking to rape, kill, and loot from them, or turning a blind eye to their troubles. Max can help them, but why should he?
Max is a man who is torn between two identities. On one hand, despite his tough exterior, deep down he desires to see justice done. Otherwise, why else would he have been a cop at a time in history when it meant that he was taking his life (and his family's lives) into his hands every time he went to work? There's no love lost when Max fights with the bandits ravaging the outpost where the small community he later comes to defend resides--one where the residents still somehow manage to pull fuel from the earth by way of an operational oil derrick. And even they don't trust him at first, after he brings a wounded man from their community back to them. He claims that he only did this because he "had a deal" with the man for fuel; was that really enough reason for Max to risk his own safety? No, I think that Max feels that if he can pick a fight with these murderers in fetish wear and that helping someone means helping himself, then he's justified in doing so. But the reality is that his tough guy act is just that. A lot could be said about "Jungian" archetypes and the conflict between the id--perhaps best represented by way of the maniac sporting the red mohawk named "Wez" (Vernon Wells)--and the ego (perhaps Max), but at the end of the day, the strength of Mad Max 2 is best represented in its frenetic action and the jaw-dropping stunts that make up the film's extended climax. Late into the film, after Max is run off of the road by Wez and his thugs--they even kill Max's dog, because, y'know, evil. He returns to the encampment, beaten and bloodied, looking for revenge. To that end, he offers to drive a semi-truck which he reclaimed for them earlier. Max's job is supposedly to transport a tanker full of fuel from the oil derrick for the settlers when they travel north. Of course the vandals--led by the hockey-mask wearing giant called "The Humungus" (Kjell Nilsson)--have the place surrounded, so a chase is inevitable. The leader of the settlers, a man named Pappagallo (Mike Preston), instructs the rest of the tribe to break off so that the rest have a chance to survive, leaving Max and those accompanying his convoy to suffer the brunt of the vandals' assault. Directed by George Miller--who also directed Mad Max--Mad Max 2 frequently uses visual cues and props to heighten the tension. There is an abundance of hand crossbows, as well as a mounted turret that shoots out arrows, four at a time, predominantly used to disable the semi's tires. When these weapons show up, it usually means bad news. There is a small music box that Max discovers among some wreckage that plays "Happy Birthday To You"; Max takes it, even though it has no practical use to him. When he encounters a feral child (Emil Minty) at the encampment, Max gives the boy the music box, which brings them joy, signifying that Max longs for simpler times. These non-verbal events--from tender ones like these to the explosive car chases--all illustrate the feel that accompanies the world of Mad Max 2, where beauty and kindness rarely survive the chaos and cruelty, but it doesn't render those gestures meaningless.
Recommended for: Fans of a post-apocalyptic adventure that moves with an aggressive confidence and high-octane energy, redlining at the height of the action with furious and explosive automotive excitement. Mad Max 2 is really what made "Mad Max" a household name--and it didn't hurt Mel Gibson's popularity, either--and has become such a legend in its own right that I believe that this film's legacy was largely responsible for the widespread acclaim which Mad Max: Fury Road received, which obviously set out to recapture that same magical spark.
Max is a man who is torn between two identities. On one hand, despite his tough exterior, deep down he desires to see justice done. Otherwise, why else would he have been a cop at a time in history when it meant that he was taking his life (and his family's lives) into his hands every time he went to work? There's no love lost when Max fights with the bandits ravaging the outpost where the small community he later comes to defend resides--one where the residents still somehow manage to pull fuel from the earth by way of an operational oil derrick. And even they don't trust him at first, after he brings a wounded man from their community back to them. He claims that he only did this because he "had a deal" with the man for fuel; was that really enough reason for Max to risk his own safety? No, I think that Max feels that if he can pick a fight with these murderers in fetish wear and that helping someone means helping himself, then he's justified in doing so. But the reality is that his tough guy act is just that. A lot could be said about "Jungian" archetypes and the conflict between the id--perhaps best represented by way of the maniac sporting the red mohawk named "Wez" (Vernon Wells)--and the ego (perhaps Max), but at the end of the day, the strength of Mad Max 2 is best represented in its frenetic action and the jaw-dropping stunts that make up the film's extended climax. Late into the film, after Max is run off of the road by Wez and his thugs--they even kill Max's dog, because, y'know, evil. He returns to the encampment, beaten and bloodied, looking for revenge. To that end, he offers to drive a semi-truck which he reclaimed for them earlier. Max's job is supposedly to transport a tanker full of fuel from the oil derrick for the settlers when they travel north. Of course the vandals--led by the hockey-mask wearing giant called "The Humungus" (Kjell Nilsson)--have the place surrounded, so a chase is inevitable. The leader of the settlers, a man named Pappagallo (Mike Preston), instructs the rest of the tribe to break off so that the rest have a chance to survive, leaving Max and those accompanying his convoy to suffer the brunt of the vandals' assault. Directed by George Miller--who also directed Mad Max--Mad Max 2 frequently uses visual cues and props to heighten the tension. There is an abundance of hand crossbows, as well as a mounted turret that shoots out arrows, four at a time, predominantly used to disable the semi's tires. When these weapons show up, it usually means bad news. There is a small music box that Max discovers among some wreckage that plays "Happy Birthday To You"; Max takes it, even though it has no practical use to him. When he encounters a feral child (Emil Minty) at the encampment, Max gives the boy the music box, which brings them joy, signifying that Max longs for simpler times. These non-verbal events--from tender ones like these to the explosive car chases--all illustrate the feel that accompanies the world of Mad Max 2, where beauty and kindness rarely survive the chaos and cruelty, but it doesn't render those gestures meaningless.
Recommended for: Fans of a post-apocalyptic adventure that moves with an aggressive confidence and high-octane energy, redlining at the height of the action with furious and explosive automotive excitement. Mad Max 2 is really what made "Mad Max" a household name--and it didn't hurt Mel Gibson's popularity, either--and has become such a legend in its own right that I believe that this film's legacy was largely responsible for the widespread acclaim which Mad Max: Fury Road received, which obviously set out to recapture that same magical spark.