Director: George Miller, George Ogilvie
Cast: Mel Gibson, Tina Turner, Helen Buday, Bruce Spence
Have I Seen it Before: Never.
Did I Like It: It’s a weird question about which to ultimately be on the fence, but this is either the worst of the Mad Max series, or the best one. It’s entirely possible that it exists in a quantum state, where it is both the worst and the best film in the series.
The hard edge simplicity of the film previous (and to a large extent, the latter) films in the series is gone, and in its place are an array of kids and a couple of power ballads from Turner. This is fundamentally a run of the mill American action movie of the 1980s. It doesn’t really need to feature the Australian Wasteland, or even Max (Gibson) at all. The way I know this is that somebody like Kevin Costner could—and did, now that I think about it—make similar movies for the next ten years. As a whole this series seeks to thrill more than it makes one want to feel, but here the mixture is tilted in the other direction.
Perhaps sensing that the series might be getting too big for its origins, we are served with more than a few great action sequences—especially the fight in the titular Thunderdome, the power ballads are actually quite good (I’ve been singing “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)” to myself for days now), and that pathos brings Max to as close a conclusion as his world and trauma might allow… Which is, of course, reset years later by Mad Max Fury Road (2015)*.
But do you want to know the most insidious part? With this film approaching a thematic ending for the character (while still not quite pulling the trigger), and the power of Max maybe finding redemption (or at least an ending) I would kind of be interested in one more Mad Max film with the old road warrior reaching his conclusion, either with some peace or with complete destruction. With Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) not doing so hot at the box office, and Gibson ramping up to release a sequel—yes, you read that right—to Passion of the Christ, it’s probably not going to happen.
*While the series is supremely disinterested in continuity or canon, today I learned that you van form a loose continuity by tracking the injuries to Max’s eyes and knees. Now you know, too.