The Road Warrior (i.e. Mad Max 2)

The Road Warrior (1981)

Runtime: 94 minutes

Directed by: George Miller

Starring: Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston, Vernon Wells, Kjell Nilsson

From: Warner Brothers-Kennedy/Miller Productions

Here is another movie I got on Blu-Ray, which like with Rambo and Doomsday I rented from the local Blockbuster (it’s the only place I know of in town to rent stuff; the local Movie Gallery closed down, which I only found out a few days ago, after it was long gone; I’m bummed, as I would have liked to have gone in there and grabbed some DVD’s for extra cheap). This one is The Road Warrior, known as Mad Max 2 elsewhere around the world. It was called that in the U.S. as most people had never seen the original Mad Max yet.

The plot is simple yet effective. The greatly named Max Rockatansky is now a loner, roaming around in the Australian desert; we learned via opening narration that the world went to hell in a handbasket, so there’s that. Max is in his sweet ride, his only companion an awesome Australian Cattle Dog (wait until you see how the dog keeps a certain person at bay from possibly harming his master). In what can be applied to current times, gasoline is in short supply so acquiring it any way possible is the way of life in the desert. After the narration things start off immediately with a car chase with Max and several bikers, which Max wins, but we see the wildly-dressed gang (w/ Wez, played by Vernon Wells) later. Then, he stumbles upon an odd gyro pilot (Spence) who tells him about an encampment of random oddballs that staked their claim to an oil pump, making them the target of the gang that has Wez; their leader is Humungus (Nilsson), a huge masked man that nonetheless speaks rather intelligently and isn’t the gravelly-voiced or grunting sort of villain. They want the oil and gasoline, but the people of the encampment refuse the offer, so the threat escalates. Under duress, Max helps them out, and you’ll see whether or not his assistance will allow them to move to the Gold Coast area of the country.

The movie-a rather interesting take on the Western-is pretty great and holds up almost 30 years later. It’s filmed very well, the pace is pretty quick, and the action stuff is tremendous, especially the final 20 minutes or so, where you wonder how they did some of the stuff without computer aid and without several stuntmen being maimed or even killed. Without giving too much away, it turns out that a part of Doomsday manages to crib pretty heavily from the final 20 minutes of The Road Warrior. Also, there’s humor throughout, some of it pretty dark, but it’s always entertaining, no matter how odd it may seem at times. It’s easy to see why this made Gibson a worldwide star with this great turn as an anti-hero who you nonetheless cheer for. It’s especially nice on Blu-Ray. Sure, there aren’t too many features on it, but for a few bucks it was a very nice rental, at least.

Check back around this time next week for at least one new review.