Following a nuclear war, society has been reconfigured around two things - weapons and gasoline.
In the middle of the irradiated wasteland, a warlord known as the Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson) lays siege to a small community based around a refinery.
He has cut off all means of escape. Hope is lost.
Until a stranger named Max (Mel Gibson) rides into town (the refinery)...
Following the extended slowburn of its predecessor, Road Warrior feels like an evolution.
This movie is the perfect example of world-building, where every character, costume and bit of set design carries a sense of history.
This also sets up the pattern - Max stumbling into a new story and providing assistance, gaining a sliver of humanity before stumbling off back into the desert.
It is unbelievable to write this, but after Fury Road, this movie feels smaller in scale and rather austere - I remember the car chase taking up more time!
As with the first movie, you can see the genesis of ideas he would continue to explore in the later movies:
The feral kid serves as the template for the tribe of lost children forming a new society. The warrior woman (Virginia Hey) whose uneasy rapport with Max would be expanded upon as the basis for Max and Furiosa.
While those germs are there, they do not negate the impact of the movie. Unlike contemporary franchises, they are also not Easter eggs for future sequels.
Like all the Mad Max movies, The Road Warrior is a completely singular entry. You do not need to have seen the original to enjoy this one.
The first thing that struck me on this viewing is its sense of confidence.
Following the opening montage, the way the film quickly introduces us to the world is so elegant.
We open on Max behind the wheel, followed by another vehicle.
That car moves forward to reveal the more improvised secondary vehicle, and then the Wes (Vernon Wells) on the back of his cycle, in full post-apocalyptic regalia.
In this moment, an entire genre and aesthetic are set that movies continue to riff off of.
The film is also more tonally secure, threading moments of humour amid the mayhem:
The comic beat of the gyro captain (Bruce Spence) tied up to the Rube Goldberg-style assembly of a shotgun with the trigger tied to a string; the game of telephone between Pappagalo and the mechanic.
There are too many to mention.
The film’s sense of scope and scale is still incredible.
Fury Road might have pushed the maximalist post-apocalyptic aesthetic further, but The Road Warrior is still jaw dropping as an example of purely in-camera spectacle.
There are so many wide shots of the exteriors, landscapes of cars driving, the expanse of the refinery and the enemy encampment.
With his hyperbolic muscles and armoured hockey mask, the Lord Humungous feels like an extension of that new sense of scale.
The Humungous represents something of an evolution in the way the franchise imagines its antagonists.
Where the first film’s Toecutter was anarchic and violent for its own sake, Humungus wants to be a conqueror.
However, his ‘empire’ is built purely on conquest, and his army collapses once he dies. He is purely a creature of violence - the opposite of Mike Preston’s more strategic Pappagallo.
It is interesting that after Road Warrior, Mad Max’s foes become twisted versions of Pappagallo’s dream: Aunty Entity is a savvy politician who helped build a town; Immortan Joe is a dictator with control of resources.
Despite the film’s violence, what sticks out about the film is how much life and death matters. Compared with Mad Max ripoffs, and also compared with other action movies, what stands out about these movies is how much they care about people.
Like the little pieces of set dressing and costuming which feel like they have a reason for existing and a sense of history, there are no minor characters: the Wes’s despair at his lover’s death; the wallflower guy with the unique eyebrows who - with one bolt - prevents the refinery from being overrun.
Fury Road was slightly more overt, but that focus on the preciousness of life is a mainstay of the franchise. Even after the world has fallen into chaos, what defines ‘heroism’ in these movies is the value people place on each other.
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