Since I am pretty busy getting over CES, I thought I would unwind with Mad Max. It is very difficult talking about this series without me explaining how I came to know them.

I first heard of them back in the eighties, when most of them were on TV. When I heard that Mad Max was on a UHF station, I couldn’t wait to watch it. I thought it was going to be a post-apocalyptic, after-the-atomic-war spectacle. When I watched the original Mad Max, I saw no evidence of a nuclear war and was wondering if I was even watching the right film.

Yes, this trilogy, all three directed by George Miller, have become iconic as they represent an idea of the world after a nuclear war. They were not the first to try this idea, but they are the ones people remember. Mad Max and its sequels took the idea that there would be human life left after the bomb, and we would start over as savages. It’s pretty easy to see why this idea would not work. I believe that we have the capacity to annihilate the world several times over with the current stockpile of nuclear weapons, and these films do not seem to account for fallout or nuclear winter. In short, if there was a nuclear war, everyone dies.

I actually had to do a little research (i.e. I looked it up on Wikipedia) to find out that Mad Max takes place in a world where energy has gone scarce. It almost looks like the entirety of the world’s oil reserves have run dry, and civilization is starting to become savage as law and order is gradually breaking down. The first film offers no such explanation about this, but kind of just throws us in this world. In all honesty, I think this scenario is possible, and it is scary. However, most of the action in Mad Max takes place on the road, which is very odd if the world’s gasoline has stopped flowing.

The first Mad Max is really a cop story, really. Max is a policeman who lives in a world where the system is crumbling, as symbolized by the police station in near ruins. There is a sadistic gang that is terrorizing the area where he lives, and Max has to track them down. The film has leftover traits of a more violent seventies era of cinema, and even though it was made for a low budget, it still delivers, action-wise.

What makes the first one work is Mel Gibson. I know that this actor is now remembered for his anti-Semitic comments rather than his Christian contribution to filmmaking, but this film sealed him as an actor. It was no surprise that he went on to be in bigger films after Mad Max, and hopefully Gibson will be remembered as a dramatic persona and not a bigot.

Spoilers after the jump.

The first Mad Max film has a rather gruesome ending where Max handcuffs a thug to a car and sets fire to the vehicle. He tells the man that it might be easier to saw through his hand than the chain. I have seen this scene in the comic-book Watchmen, and can’t help but feel that the graphic novel’s writer, Alan Moore stole this. The ending really shows the character journey that Max has been through, as his wife and son were killed by this savage gang. I realize it is a spoiler to mention the death of Max’s family, but I did warn you. Also, I have noticed, in certain types of violent action films, that characters with stable and loving wives and children are often left widowed and fatherless by the end.

So yeah, I saw it coming, but only because The Road Warrior shows Max as a loner. I believe The Road Warrior is known as Mad Max 2, in its country of origin, but I actually enjoy the fact that it has a separate title. I’m tired of movies just having a “2” or “3” after them. The best sequels should just have a different name, and The Road Warrior is very different from Mad Max. This film does begin with narration that explains that the world did blow itself up. The plot is essentially a post-apocalyptic western that has been imitated many times. In the case of The Road Warrior, it is about a town terrorized by a savage gang, and a stranger arrives to save the day. This has been essentially done to death in westerns like the ones Clint Eastwood used to be in, and Max is an interesting savior figure.

Of course, these films are really about how Max is never really a pure good figure. If anything, he is fighting not to become savage in a world that has essentially gone to hell. As I said before, it is what Mel Gibson doesn’t say that tells us volumes about this character.

This leads to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. By this time, Mad Max was becoming a commercial success, and this film even earned a PG-13 rating. Note how it isn’t just called Beyond Thunderdome, but they put Mad Max’s name with a colon on it. I think the studio wanted the film to be a hit, and even brought in music superstar Tina Turner in to be the villain.

I remember liking this third film a lot when I was a kid, as it shows Max as a man who is willing to lay down his life for a group of orphaned children. However, it really takes Max an entire film before he is willing to accept this role, and his true fate is really unknown by the end.

Sadly, this franchise is about to be rebooted. There is another Mad Max film in the works with a subtitle of Fury Road. The role of Max will be played by Tom Hardy, and I’m not certain what it will be about. I’m guessing that they might try and change the backstory behind Mad Max, as post-apocalyptic movies have not been very successful. Do I need to remind you of The Postman by Kevin Costner? There is a good post-apocalyptic film known as The Book of Eli which I will have to review on another date.

In short, I recommend the Mad Max films for action, and the way the character is played is awesome as well. If this fourth one goes well, then this franchise will never die. Maybe it is better to draw it to a close.