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I think most people prefer The Road Warrior (RW), a.k.a. Mad Max 2, to its predecessor, Mad Max (1979). Personally, I'm torn. I am usually most fond of whichever I've seen more recently. While Mad Max (MM) is definitely grittier and more viscerally powerful, the Road Warrior is more polished and professional. Mad Max is a great cult and independent movie, a triumph of style and skill over material limitations. Road Warrior is, simply, a GREAT action movie; in my estimation it ranks up there with The Terminator (1984) and Die Hard (1988) as one of the three best action movies of all time. (BTW, you can use this information to deduce my rough age. If I were older, I would probably single out Bullitt (1968) or the Wild Bunch (1969); younger and I'd be telling you the best included Independence Day (1996), the Rock (1996) or Con Air (1997) (which is another potential movie for review being set partially in an airborne prison). RW starts off with a voice-over narration introducing us to Max's (Mel Gibson) world. It basically summarizes the events of the first movie, and sort of clarifies the political situation in the world. I say "sort of" because actually the narration is little confusing about the time frame of things. It tells us that a world war has occurred, but it isn't clear whether that happens before or after the events in the first movie. In any case, the setting of RW is much more desolate than in MM. Instead of being in a crumbling urban environment with permanent settlements, RW is set in "the wasteland," a desert with nothing but roads, nomadic gangs, and sand and rock.
The movie opens with a short, but intense action sequence as Max is attacked on the highway by a small group of outlaws. Max is still driving his V-8 interceptor from the first movie, although it does look a little the worse for the wear. He's also added a dog to replace the one killed in the first movie. The dog's name is, perhaps unsurprisingly given Max's laconic nature, named "Dog." In any case, Max's first instinct is to run, but as his fuel supply runs low, he realizes he's going to have to fight. He slows down enough for the bad guys to pass him on both sides, but just as they're about to shoot at him with arrows, he slams on the brakes and they shoot each other. Now behind one of the cars, Max restarts his supercharger and rear-ends one of the bad guys, who loses control and crashes into his fellow gang members. Max slams on the brakes, tires screeching, and car shimmying from the rapid deceleration. He jumps out of the car, his old leather police uniform battered, and now customized with tools and weapons. He is no longer Max, family man and cop, but rather the Road Warrior. I like the opening. It is a classic, and it really sets the mood for the rest of the movie. Max is not a superhero; he's just a little quicker and cooler than the rest. After salvaging what fuel he can, Max continues on his wanderings. By the side of the road, he comes upon a strange machine--an ultralight helicopter contraption sitting apparently by itself. He outmaneuvers the snake that is guarding the gyro, but as he does, the pilot rises up out of the sand and threatens him with a crossbow. Two points here: (1) How long has the gyro pilot (Bruce Spence) been buried in the sand waiting for someone to come by? I mean, this is pretty desolate country, it could be weeks between visitors. (2) One interesting thing about RW is how scarce guns are. Think about it, this is a world that has recently undergone a world war, and yet Max is always desperately scrounging up shotgun shells, and the head villain who we meet later, literally has a half-dozen bullets to his name. Everyone else is armed with simpler projectile weapons: long bows, crossbows, and even flamethrowers, but few guns.
With the help of Dog, Max manages to disarm the gyro pilot. In order to save his life, the pilot offers to show Max where he can get a lot of fuel. He then leads him to an extraordinary sight, a walled community built around a refinery in the desert. The community is a last ditch attempt to maintain a semblance of civilization in a world gone mad. The inhabitants are under siege from crazed nomads, the descendants of the gangs Max fought on the highways in MM. The nomad dress like punk rockers, and drive a varied collection of motorcycles, trucks, and dune buggies, virtually all of them armed and armored. And they want the fuel.
Now, here is the thing... we've got this strange quasi-apocalyptic setting, defined largely by the absence of law, the scarcity of gasoline, and the physical bareness of the land. So why would a nomadic, fuel-dependent gang arise in that setting? The gang's structure is well-defined and hierarchical. They are organized enough to maintain a siege. But what are they doing out in the wasteland, tearing around in motorized vehicles, when the only easy source of fuel comes from attacking others who make the mistake of traveling in their direction? It's not like they're sitting astride trade routes, or pasture land, or farm land. How do they eat? And I guess this is where RW falls short; unlike MM which occurs in a recognizable world (especially to someone in the late 1970s who had recently lived through the massive upsurge in crime in the late 1960s/early 1970s and the gas shortages of 1973 and 1979), RW requires a fundamental suspension of disbelief. A lot of things happen in RW because the plot requires it, rather than because events follow some sort of consistent internal logic.
Max sets up an observation post. The next morning, Max is awakened by the sound of engines. As he watches, several vehicles drive out of the community and into the desert, with the gang members chasing them. The desert crazies quickly swarm on the escaping vehicles. Max watches as one is caught, and its occupants attacked. After the gang members depart, leaving the the car's passengers for dead, Max swoops down and finds that one is still alive. Cutting a hasty deal to trade the man's life for gas, Max loads him into his car and approaches the compound. His appearance is hardly one to generate trust, but when they see that Max has brought back one of their own, he's cautiously admitted into inside the walls. Max simply wants to refuel his car and go, but before he can complete the deal, the man he rescued dies. With his death, Max's "contract" evaporates. At the same time, the crazies return, having tracked down all the escaping vehicles, and displaying their new captives tied to their cars and trucks.
At this point, we meet the leader of the nomads. He is a massively muscled man wearing a metal mask, sort of Conan (the Barbarian, not the talk show host) meets Darth Vader, appropriately named The Humungus (Kjell Nilsson). With a mixture of threats and promises, he makes the compounds inhabitants an offer: If they'll walk away from the gas, he'll provide them safe passage through the wasteland. But if they try to escape or take the fuel with them, they will all be killed. This causes division within the group, especially since their captured comrades had been on a mission to find a truck large enough to haul the gasoline away with them. Their failure and the on-going siege has sapped their morale. Enter Max to the rescue. He informs the group that he spotted a large rig a couple of days back, and that he'll bring it back if they'll agree to release him, his car, and as much gas as he can carry in return. Max departs on foot that same night. Max's trip across the wasteland is relatively uneventful. He hitches a ride from the gyro pilot he'd conveniently left chained to a tree trunk earlier. As he approaches the compound in the truck, he's attacked by the nomads. This is another great action sequence, as Max fights off a swarm of assailants, and drives through their camp to the fortress refinery. As he drives through the main gates, several of the besieging nomads follow into the compound, leading to a wild fight as the defender try to hold their perimeter while also dealing with the attackers now inside. With some help from Max, they manage to hold off the onslaught again.
As The Humungus and his men rage outside, torturing the prisoners they captured during the earlier ill-fated reconnaissance runs, the inhabitants of the compound work around the clock to prepare for their departure using the truck Max has delivered to carry their fuel. Max, however, doesn't plan to stay around with them. Instead, he loads up his car with gas, and heads out in the middle of the night. Of course, he is pursued, in a relatively short sequence, he is tracked down and run off the road. He manages to pull himself out of his mangled car, and is saved from death by a booby trap on his gas tanks that kills his attackers before they can finish him off. Seeing the cloud of black smoke over the horizon, the gyro pilot takes off and brings Max, battered and bloody, back to the compound. His car destroyed, and his future bleak, Max offers to drive the big rig in the escape attempt. What follows is one of the greatest, extended action sequences in the movies. It really has to be seen to be appreciated, and there is no way I can adequately describe it even with pictures to help. Max is driving the truck, which is hauling a full tanker. The tanker is armored, covered with turrets and barbed wire--a rolling fortress. Tearing down the road at highway speeds, Max and a couple of others fights off dozens of attackers armed with arrows, grappling hooks, and their own vehicles. It is just a wild sequence, beautifully executed throughout. Max manages to kill off most of the attackers, and at the climactic moment rams The Humungus as he drives off the road.
As we know, Max lives to fight another day in the sequel, Max Mad: Beyond Thunderdome (1985), but I think most Mad Max fans agree that this sequence is the highpoint of the series. The first movie is definitely darker and quirkier and more human, but the Road Warrior is technically brilliant, exciting, and a hell of a lot of fun.
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