Review of Mad Max 2 (1981) by Tim B — 16 Jul 2010

The Road Warrior set the stage for two different causes 1) It's a sequel to the great "Mad Max," and caused many people to search for the original movie to check out (like myself) 2) It spawned Hollywood to put a name on their list: Mel Gibson, who went on to act in and direct some of the greatest movies of our generation.

Not only setting the stage for the future, The Road Warrior gives us much more than that. I remember digging this movie on the satellite when I was a brat. Now that I'm grown up (physically, anyway) and checked it out on DVD, I got so much more out of it and realized how truly great this movie was.

Definitely ahead of its time. Much like Halloween did for horror, this action-driven little sleeper took an original narrative, kept it simple and ran with it as far as it could. There's very little dialogue and that was my main appreciation.

To me, the best movies have little dialogue and rely on actions and visuals to tell the stories (much like people). The movie was over before I even realized it, helped by the outstanding directing. George Miller had amazing camera angles that I'm sure other action directors have stolen.

His pacing is flawless. Mel Gibson had very little dialogue. His sheer presence was what made him stand out. No wonder the man went places. Bruce Spence was okay in the role, but didn't do much for me one way or another.

Vernon Wells was very unnerving as the badass "could be a queer" bad guy. Emil Minty was pretty convincing as the creepy kid. Kjell Nilsson stood out as the hockey mask wearing, insanely buff freak.

Did the Friday the 13th series inspire from his character? On top of all this you get an anti-hero to be reckoned with, an amazing score backing it up, beautiful cinematography (I want to go to Australia) and one messed up, breathtaking car chase scene and you get a bonafide classic that set the staple, was copied endlessly and is still isn't surpassed yet.

Crack open the beers, have the guys over and enjoy.