Mad Max

Bonus post: I'm home with Covid, lots of time on my hands

I highly recommend watching all of the Mad Max movies in a short time span.
The story told in the movies is a satisfying epic, with a strong finish (so far) but you'll also be treated to the story of George Miller, a medical doctor who pursues his dreams and becomes a scrappy independent filmmaker. It’s delightful watching him grow better, more mature and more ambitious, while gaining access to bigger budgets and more advanced special effects and stunts with each film.
Its a 45 year journey from the first Mad Max film, a fantastic low budget genre pic, to Furiosa, a big budget summer blockbuster. My thoughts on each film:

Mad Max: No mention of apocalypse, just a late 70s near-future crime dystopia. This is where we see Max break, going from tough cop who loves his friends, his wife, his kid, and his dog to becoming Mad Max, loner scourge of the highway, something he himself sees coming and aims to avoid when he quits the police force halfway through the movie. He may have more dialogue in this one than in any of the others but already he's a man of few words. Definitely some Sergio Leone influence. A great watch. Holds up.

Mad Max 2: The nuclear apocalypse / wasteland theme is introduced. An interesting challenge for a sequel, the hero is already broken, seemingly beyond redemption in the first movie. Miller leans into the western genre as our loner is forced to confront what small bit of humanity remains in him, but he remains an outsider, alone in the world again at the film’s conclusion.
From a dystopian near future in the first film, the real world building starts in MM2; groups are forming in the wastelands among the survivors of nuclear war, as are protected outposts. Max is dragged reluctantly into the conflicts of this developing society.

Ferel Kid is fantastic, and his reaction to the music box is one of my favorite scenes, showing that there is still a kid beneath the ferocity, and that Max can still appreciate this.

Two movies, two dead dogs. You really risk making one hell of an enemy when you kill a guy’s dog.

These first two movies popularize, and perhaps even originate, the punk rock apocalypse aesthetic we’d see throughout the eighties and beyond.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome: The wasteland continues to develop, as evidenced by Bartertown, a trading post and small town with its own harsh and absolute laws and system of justice, ruled by Auntie Entity, played wonderfully by the great Tina Turner. Max also accidentally discovers an encampment of children who’ve constructed their own religion based around the remnants they find of pre-apocalypse ruins. This encampment serves as an innocent contrast to the wicked Bartertown and so of course, a showdown must happen. Thunderdome succeeds the least in its goals out of the first three movies, but it’s goals are also the most ambitious. There is slapstick comedy, characters with real depth, and the strongest female characters yet. Was it a wink to Clint Eastwood’s character in Leone’s Dollar trilogy that Max is introduced as The Man With No Name when he fights in Thunderdome?
It may not hit it’s mark with every scene, but still a fun watch, and the bridge, or maybe the ramp that launches the franchise forward… eventually.

Mad Max Fury Road: In the thirty years between Thunderdome and Fury Road, George Miller built a filmography nobody could have predicted. Having only done the three Mad Max movies, and one segment of The Twilight Zone Movie, suddenly he’s all over the map. He drops Witches of Eastwick, Lorenzo’s Oil, Babe, Babe 2, Happy Feet, Happy Feet 2, and even manages a documentary on Australian cinema, 40,000 Years of Dreaming. He returns to his beloved franchise a powerful well rounded filmmaker, now in shape to give us one of cinemas all time great action flicks.

Fury Road is perfection. The story telling has depth but is masterfully efficient. The action unrelenting with just enough exhibition to make you care about it. The over the top comic book style bad guys remain, bigger than ever, but Miller manages to make them believable and menacing as hell. CGI had come along way and had taken over special effects in the three decades since the last Mad Max movie, and Miller uses it well, but he also knows that real stunts are still thrilling to behold. The mixture in Fury Road is a delight.

Max is still the strong silent loner, and Tom Hardy manages to add the haunted, damaged aspects in new ways that make the character more complex. Furiosa, played by the always brilliant Charlize Theron is the kind of action hero that could steal the focus from Mad Max in a Mad Max movie. In short, she kicks ass. She just kicks so much ass.

The men’s rights crackpots who boycotted this movie added a bit of fun to seeing it in a theater. I’ve watched it multiple times since then and it holds up well to repeat viewing.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga: Go see this one in a theater while there’s still time. It’s a great popcorn flick, definitely worthy of the large screen and booming sound system, and even if you have those things at home, its a fun one to share with a crowd.

Though this is probably the first Mad Max movie that doesn’t step up from it’s predecessor in ambition and scope its a great ride nonetheless. If you fell in love with the character of Furiosa and the hints we saw of her backstory in Fury Road, it’s fun diving deeper. This also takes us full circle to the theme of the first movie, seeing a good person break, and become ruthless in their drive for revenge.

In every one of these films Miller excels at creating blowhard, pontificating, would be messiah antagonists and Hemsworth’s Dementus may be the most gleefully arrogant, clueless ass of them all. Seeing him crave and fight ruthlessly for power he has no skill in wielding can’t help but feel like a poke at a certain armchair quarterback who has somehow conned his way onto the field, and will burn the place to the ground rather than admit his incompetence. (Its obvious I mean Trump right? I’m hoping it’s obvious, but just in case, yes, I mean Trump).

Furiosa has not done great in the box office, but neither has any film playing along side it and I think Covid surges, and political intrigue, and who knows what else, may be behind the abysmal start to the summer box office season. I predict it will continue to grow with word of mouth, and will be seen as a sleeper hit before too long.

One interesting take away from watching all five flicks within a few weeks, Miller’s antagonists are always self aggrandizing cult leader types, who refer to themselves as benevolent leaders selflessly serving their beloved hordes. It’s interesting that in Thunderdome Max is recognized as a Messiah by the kids of “Plantet Erf” and he rejects the role rather than exploit it to take advantage of their considerable resources.