Mad Max

MAD MAX is so good...

The entire bezoomny franchise...

MAD MAX.

THE ROAD WARRIOR.

MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME.

Most of you may know the drill. First one was a big hit in Australia. They redubbed all the voices (including Mel Gibson's) for the American release to get rid of those nutty Olivia Newton-John accents and it tanked here. Which is why the U.S. release of the "Mad Max 2" was retitled "The Road Warrior".

"Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" received a mixed reception, though I adore that motherfucking movie. Wikipedia tells me something I didn't know before:

George Miller, director of the first two Mad Max movies, lost interest in the project after his friend and producer Byron Kennedy was tragically killed in a helicopter crash while location scouting. Miller later agreed to direct the action sequences, with George Ogilvie directing the rest of the film. There is a title card at the end that says, "For Byron."

But that first one, "MAD MAX", is a little gem. Clearly the most budget of the series. Takes place in some between-time right before the entire landscape turned into a wasteland: pre-post-apocalyptic. Some semblance of civilization exists. Mel plays a cop, Max Rockatansky. He's got a pretty wife and baby who are clearly (**SPOILERS**) doomed...

Max is a reluctant hero who tries to escape from the downward spiral of society. Until it affects him personally. Then it's a revenge movie.

But the cards are really well-played throughout. It's not the sheer exploitative Death Wish type of affair that you might expect from a prison colony like Australia.

One of the things I really like about the trilogy is the sense of continuity. "Blaster", the simpleton oaf that Max has his famous Thunderdome battle with --

-- actually makes a cameo in the original "Mad Max"! You think he's a threat until you see his face, at which point you feel sorry for him. Seeing him in the third film, you get the sense of what this character has had to do to fit into the new paradigm of this post-apocalyptic society.