The original Mad Max is pretty easy to boil down to an essence: fast motorcycles, rusty weapons, loud cars and bald revenge. For most of the story, we see Max as the cool, composed vendor of justice; a man who hasn't yet learned to discard the establishment in an increasingly turbulent world. He patrols a gang-plagued war zone, essentially a sleepwalking child, thoroughly unprepared for the foundational shock he's about to endure. Most of that pathos is left to the audience's subconscious, since so much of the running time is devoted to hostile moments of anarchy and long, noisy highway scenes with violent ends.
First-time writer/director George Miller hasn't entirely fleshed out Max's world - this landscape is more rural homestead and less dystopian hellscape - and his skills as a filmmaker are still nascent. In fact, this installment frequently reminds me of the first Evil Dead, in that it's more of a unique, genre-driven learning experience than an objectively good, well-realized standalone film. Pacing is a major problem. Despite all the roaring engines and ballooning fireballs, it's downright boring at points, struggling to tie the crazy action to the more grounded, human transformation of its troubled lead. Frequent continuity errors are distracting, too, like how Max's young family completely forgets they have a child when it's not convenient. And, for all the build to their inevitable collision, the climactic conflict between anti-hero and big bad is basically just treated like a footnote. Max doesn't even flinch, he just moves on to the next guy. Just like I think I should do with this franchise.
Review by JCVIP 4BlockedParent2024-05-05T07:14:29Z
I can’t deny its influence, or Miller’s skill at his craft to achieve this on such a small budget, but on the whole this film leaves me cold. The setting’s kind of a cobbled together pre-mid apocalypse that’s never really explained or lands. It feels more like fuel for law and order vs hedonistic terror tropes. The bad guys are having fun, especially Keays-Byrne, who shows a lot of that unsettling but entertaining charisma that he’ll refine and perfect in Fury Road.
Speaking of, Fury Road is a specter that hangs over this film, as someone who’s first Mad Max was that. Not in terms of action or such- it’s a movie from decades later with an actual budget. It’d be unfair to compare, and the car chases here are actually quite exciting and thrilling, and very impressive being pulled off with these resources. I just mean that this movie kind of makes Mad Max… less interesting. It’s odd, maybe even mean to say, but it sometimes feels like an unnecessary prequel we’d get today, filling out gaps that don’t need to be filled. It’s the first movie! But Max’s archetypal, almost mythological portrayal in Fury Road, letting the audience fill in the gaps, is so much more striking. I never truly get the feel of the character here, not helped by Gibson who I honestly feel is a bit bland. I don’t believe that Max really loves this shit on a dark, corrupting level.
His dynamic with his wife is cute enough, but she never gets a chance to be more than his wife and mother of his child and just serves to be the vehicle for his tragic but righteous rampage. The movie builds up to this for so long when he already had a reason with Goose? That could be his revenge and that quest- his own actions- could be what loses him his family? Instead a lot of this set up just drags. There’s enough here that I see how it influenced so many and launched a franchise. There’s some weird and frenetic energy, especially in the villains’ mannerisms and dialogue. I actually like the assault on the farm, creeping into some thriller, even horror territory. But I have the feeling the first Mad Max is most valuable for how it sets the foundation for its sequels- and many of the fiction it influenced- to crash through. It’s worth watching for the historical value and Miller’s ingenuity on a budget, but not a ride I’d take again anytime soon.