It was with no trepidation at all that I put the next disc in the player, There was just no way that Mad Max 2 could be as bad as Mad Max. And I was right. I LOVED this film - for the simple reason that the narration totally negates ANY need to watch Mad Max. In the first two minutes you get all the salient points (there weren't many) and then more story than number 1 could have dreamt of. No one need ever watch Mad Max ever again. Ever. Again.
And then it's business as usual with a car chase, crashes and mayhem. So it goes.
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| Don't get attached to the puppy |
There was clearly more money spent on this film (the budget was $4 million, rather than $350 000). They hired more real actors for starters, and had actual sets and costumes, and hair dressers. Lots and lots of hair dressers. They also spent more time on the story, as in there are probably three lines of plot, rather than a mere loose description. And stunt men. How much of that $4 million was spent on stunt men, stunt choreographers and vehicles?
As was pointed out in my review of Mad Max 1 (you can read it here) this was all before CGI. All the stunts were real. They had to actually be done by real people and real vehicles. This includes the rolling of Max's V8 Interceptor, the chase and rolling of the tanker and, of course, the motorcycle rider hitting the buggy and hurtling 20 metres through the air. Why are we at all impressed by action films these days? They can't compare.
Road Warrior has some of the problems of the first film. The bad guys still seem to come from the piggery school of acting, or an amateur dramatic society led by a mad declaimer. And the writing, though much improved, is still clunky, But the musical score is better and everyone seems to be making a genuine effort. And the stunts are spectacular.
Miller has learnt about pacing. The film is 96 minutes long but unlike the first it feels shorter than its time. The action drives the story (one could say it is a lot of the story) and the violence, while still graphic, is not constant. There is a building to the climax of the tanker chase (the actual sequence is well enough planned that it doesn't feel 13 minutes long) and then the film comes to a suitable end. As in it really finishes. Same ending, Max disappearing, but this time it feels complete.
There's also better direction of the actors. Instead of being expressionless and vacant, Mel Gibson is now allowed to act broken and distant. Not a lot of difference, but enough. There is at least the sense that he is doing something, that there are undercurrents even if we can't see them.
Bruce Spence gives Steve Bisley a run for his money as stand out character actor. He imbues the Gyrocaptain with great verve, brings him to life. What the captain lacks in depth he makes up for in dogged persistence and cheerfulness. Here is a man who makes the most of what life throws at him, even though the sheer awfulness of it all sometimes gives him pause. From the captain to the Mouth of Sauron Spence's delight in his craft remains unchanged. He always gives it his best.
The setting has become more conventionally post-apocalyptic, which is understandable, but kind of a shame. Still, entropy and all that. Society has collapsed and those left fight viciously amongst themselves, mainly for remaining oil supplies. The only law is that which you can enforce yourself. The strong survive, the weak die. In "the Wasteland" where the film takes place this is especially true, and Miller makes sure we know it. More bulging-eyed corpses. He can't be accused of subtlety.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior was shot out around Broken Hill and Silverton, in outback New South Wales. I have been to these places. There is a weird beauty about them, but I couldn't stand to live there. I'd be terminally depressed within days. The heat and dust alone are enough to do me in. But the sky is huge, the landscape vast and the sunrises and sunsets spectacular. If you want somewhere that looks like the world has ended and makes humans insignificant, it's a great location.
The action in the Wasteland centres around a seige of an oil processing compound by a group of crazed leatherclad mohawked loons lead by a masked man known as The Humungous. He wears a studded leather posing pouch and some leather straps and not much else. As the Steamgoth said, "they're in the desert. How does he not have some kind of skin cancer?" The other side, those in the compound, are equally bizarrely dressed. All in creams and beige (refining oil is such a clean job), with big 80s shoulder pads and big 80s hair. Some wear cricket pads and gloves (well, it is Australia). Then there is the Feral Kid, in kangaroo skins with a metal boomerang.
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| Of course we work in an oil refinery. Can't you tell? |
It was interesting watching the desert shift in colour from red to green. It was nice that they had a rain sequence in there to explain it. Everything blooms very quickly when the rain comes, and vanishes almost as fast. But I am glad that they shot the last sequence with the green still there. There is something reassuring about it. No matter how stupid people become, the earth continues to do its thing, completely ignoring us and our petty squabbles. Everyone's actions are meaningless.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is not a great film. But it is not terrible. And it is not boring. The narration at beginning and end works really well, and is some genuinely lovely writing, the art of storytelling beautifully delivered. Max's reluctance to be a help, let alone a hero, is a nice antidote to the typical action character. However, I can't help feeling there is an uncomfortable homophobic undertone to parts of the film, although I could be reading too much into it. It's difficult to say. But on the whole, it is much much better than Mad Max.
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