The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2) by George Miller (1981)
20 May 2007I can honestly say that this film is a major contributor to my love for cinema as it is today. I consider this one of the best action films ever made (as well as one of the best sequels, one which topped it’s predecessor), but a quintessential film in any film collectors collection. This was in fact the first R rated film I ever saw, in the theater at age 6 with my father (no doubt some of your will now be snickering and going, oh that explains things), and I loved it so much that the next night I took my step father to go see it. And when it came out on video my dad and I rented it and watched it over and over again for an entire weekend, I seem to recall over 20 times. This film has barely any dialogue, and easily the best car on car action to ever be filmed. It was this film that inspired games like Car Wars which I played for years. Max is one of the greatest anti-heroes ever. This is a must see film, and with the new HD DVD release it is even better. This is one of the best looking discs I have ever seen! The detail is fantastic. You can see film grain, but no compression artifacting, and the blacks are so nice and crisp. This film hasn’t looked better since it was in the theater.
This gorgeous cinemascope films starts out with a 3:4 film frame, showing scenes from the first film (not necessary to have seen), where we basically see that this is basically a post apocalyptic future where men fight for the last of the gasoline, roving in gangs across the landscape and destroying everything that moves. Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) was a former cop, who lost his whole family and his knee destroyed, and is now roaming the wastelands in his customized V-8 Interceptor (A Ford Falcon, the coolest car Ford ever made) with a giant supercharger coming through the hood, and booby trapped gas tanks on the back. It is just Max and his dingo, and immediately he is set upon by a group of road vermin, led by the motorcycle riding Wez (Vernon Wells). Max outdrives the scavengers and gets out to get their gasoline next to a rig, and manages to scare off Wez and his gay lover with his shotgun. Max then finds a gyrocopter, and is ambushed by the Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence, damn is this guy strange looking), but with his dog manages to capture him, and he makes a deal. He won’t kill him if the Gyro Captain will show him where he can get all the fuel he needs. They head to a rocky outcrop outlooking a fortified base, where they are pumping oil, but they are surrounded by the scavenging followers of the Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson) including Wez.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
(I couldn’t resist posting all the posters I could find)
Max locks up the Gyro Captain, and watches as the people at the base send out various vehicles trying to find an escape route away from Humungus and his followers, and he sees one car stopped near him, where the woman is killed, and the guy is shot with crossbow bolts, so he heads there, and saves the dyeing guy and heads for the base. The base, led by Pappagallo (Michael Preston) and the Warrior Woman (Virginia Hey) let him in with the guy, but take his car, and lock him up as a scavenger trading in human flesh, while he had made a deal for fuel, but the guy died before he could tell them. And then Humungus returns with prisoners and tells them if they trade the tanker of fuel he will give them free passage, and many in the base agree, though not Pappagallo. Max picks his locks and tells them that if they want to get out they need to talk to him.
Max will take some diesel and high octane fuel and will bring back the rig to haul the tanker in exchange for his car and all the fuel they can carry, and they agree. Max sneaks out in the night, and is aided by the metal boomerang wielding Feral Boy (Emil Minty). Max finds the Gyro Captain and heads for his helicopter, where poison snakes have killed a guy and Max finally gets a shotgun shell for his gun, and the Captain flies Max to the rig, where he gets it going. The Gyro Captain declares them partners and flies after Max as Max heads through Humungus’s legions and gets back to the base.
The people in the base want Max to drive the rig, but he is determined to leave and Pappagallo lets him, but Wez follows and crashes him with Humungus’s car using Nitrous Oxide to catch up, but the booby trap kills all but Wez, and Max escapes but in bad shape, and the Gyro captain comes and gets him.
Though in awful shape Max agrees to drive the rig now, and they armor it up, and the Warrior Woman and Mechanic (Steve J. Spears) get, as does the Feral Boy, and they head out with some vehicles running interference, but then the buss and the rest of the people head out in the other direction, and they blow up the base.
A huge battle ensues over the rig, and everyone but Max and the Ferral boy die, and finally Max turns around and heads right for Humungus and crashes into him, crashing the rig, but they have won. Max stumbles out and finds out that the rig was full of sand, it seems the fuel was hidden in the other vehicles. We learn the Gyro captain became the new leader, and eventually the Feral boy, but they left Max there in the desert with a vehicle and some fuel, never to see the Road Warrior again.
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What an amazing film. Just the best. You just need to ignore that their was ever a sequel. The disc also includes a new commentary.
This was one of my college teachers favorite films as well. He loved the editing, especially how they break the line when the rig crashes into Humungus in order to make the impact bigger.
And Mel Gibson barely speaks, but has never been better. This is the ultimate anti-hero film. You can’t beat it!
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