Review of Mad Max 2 (1981) by Allan C — 26 Oct 2018

"There has been too much violence, too much pain. Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror." The first and easily the best of the warriors-of-the-wasteland sci-fi film sub-genre, "The Road Warrior" holds up as an absolute classic.

In his star making role as Mad Max (real name Max Rockatansky, although his last name is never said in this film, which was titled "Mad Max 2" in Australia, but re-named "The Road Warrior" for US audiences since the first film was hardly seen in the US), Mel Gibson commands the screen and oozes charisma as the silent brooding wastelander, aimlessly wandering a desolate Australian outback for another tank of gas until he stumbles upon a community of survivors running an oil refinery and being laid siege to by a vicious biker gang.

The story is the classic western archetype of the lone gunfighter, ALA "Shane" or "Pale Rider," where a lone cowboy helps some innocents and finds their moral center again, which is exactly the story of "The Road Warrior.

" However, what makes "The Road Warrior" such a classic is its wildly original vision of a post-apocalyptic world. The crazy outfits incorporating salvaged sports equipment, medieval chainmail, and what appears to be bondage gear, to the the outrageously modded vehicles, to the frightening low tech weapons of sharpened boomerangs, savage looking throwing axes, and the few guns left with very little ammo, all all add up to a bleak and yet wildly fun comic book vision of a destroyed world.

Sure there were other post apocalyptic end-of-the-world films before this one. Probably "The Omega Man" or "The Ultimate Warrior" were the closest to this film, but neither of those films were anywhere as action packed or shockingly violent.

And while those films have charismatic leading men with Charlton Heston and Yul Brenner, neither of them are anywhere as cool as a leather clad, shotgun toting 25-year old Mel Gibson. Sure Gibon is in real life is a nutcase and an awful person, but on-screen he has Steve McQueen-levels of cool.

I read an essay once by horror author Brian Keen (great pulpy stuff you should check out) writing about post apocalyptic films of the 80s. He made the astute observation that these films are to Gen-X what westerns were to Baby Boomers.

They represented lawless, untamed environments where there is no expectation of a society or civilization to reign people in from their worst instincts. These worlds are inhabited bandits, marauders, and assorted villains, who more often than not represent the strong and powerful, taking advantage of the good and the weak.

Folks choose their path for good or evil, with nothing to stop them from choosing one over the other except their own moral code. Some lose their way for a time, but more often than not find the right path again.

The recent Purge films and TV series are probably the most recent reinvention of this archetype. The story is immediately familiar and attractive to audiences, as it is part of the collective cultural zeitgeist, but the setting was wholly new at the time.

This was a new and unfamiliar world that was utterly enthralling. Watching the film, you'd immediatley want to see more of this world and to explore what's out there. Adolescent boys everywhere who saw this movie could fantasize about how they too could be like Mad Max and tame the wasteland to help the innocent.

Cowboys were old and stale at this point, so Mad Max made it something new again. But it's not just the setting and a super cool Mel Gibson that set this film apart. The action sequences by director George Miller were something never before seen on film.

There had been plenty of car chase films prior to this one (I.e. "Gumball Rally" "Vanishing Point" "Two-Lane Blacktop" "Gone in 60 Seconds"), but none of those films had as wild of a setting as "The Road Warrior.

" "Death Race 2000" and "A Boy and his Dog" are likely the closest to cousins to this film that came before, but the violence in those films was done for camp and/or black humor, where the action in "The Road Warrior" is done straight and has some of the best car chase sequences ever committed to film, all done in a world audiences had never seen before.

Rewatching the film now, the action seems all the more impressive in that it was made in an era of non-digital special effects, where all of the stunts were performed in-camera and not enhanced with CGI, which greatly adds to the visceral impact of the action.

"The Road Warrior" spawned endless imitators, everything from big budget Hollywood post-apocalyptic films like "The Book of Eli" or "Doomsday" to low-budget Italian ripoffs at the same time like "1990: The Bronx Warriors" or "The New Barbarians" to far too many 80s and 90s low-budget post-apocalyptic films to mention ("Crime Zone" "Endgame" "Hands of Steel" "Spacehunter" etc.

) to video games like "Fallout," "Wastelands," "Rage," or "Borderland" to lovingly made contemporary homages like "Turbo Kid," "Wyrmwood," or "Stakeland.

" George Miller's "The Road Warrior" invented a whole new subgenera of warriors-of-the-wasteland films, books, and assorted pop culture in a way that is comparable to George A. Romero's invention of the modern zombie horror subgenera with "Night of the Living.

" Both films established own "rules" for these worlds and both spawned their own set of sequels, imitators, and films those that pushed the subgenera into new territory. The influence of these film was such, that they are both subgeneras which endure to this day.

"The Road Warrior" is an undeniable classic and a film that has earned a well deserved place on my Top 10 Desert Island Film List (as in, if I were trapped on a desert island and could only watch 10 films for the rest of my life, what would they be?), so if for some unfathomable reason you haven't watched this film, stop what you are doing right now and watch it immediately! Certainly worth my owning it on VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, and now Blu-Ray.