Loner Max travels the wastelands of post-apocalyptic Australia in his souped-up car. Finding an oil refinery defended by average people is under siege by punk marauders led by the masked Humungus (Kjell Nilsson), Max makes a deal to find them a truck to move their gasoline in exchange for as much fuel as he can carry. When Max’s plans are ruined by Wez (Vernon Wells), a psychotic member of the attacking gang, Max decides to aid the citizens in their escape.
Roaring engines, lighthearted violence, humor, and non-stop action define The Road Warrior (or Mad Max 2 as it was titled in most of the world). A just-miss for my 10 most important Science Fiction films list, it solidified the standard film image of the post-apocalyptic world (deserts, dune buggies with mounted weapons, Mohawks, and fetish-wear) and made a star of Mel Gibson. It’s exciting, which is a good thing because calm observation would find far too much that didn’t make sense.
After creating the mundane and humorless revenge melodrama, Mad Max, writer/director George Miller submerged himself in westerns, samurai films, and Joseph Campbell’s views on myth. Dumping the feel, setting, and even genre of the first film, he took Max and put him into the basic hero story that’s been told thousands of times. The tale, if you somehow have missed it, has a lone gunslinger/samurai/knight coming upon a group of peaceful citizens who represent mom, apple pie, and Chevrolet. They are being harassed by some black hats who support dogs and cats sleeping together. The hero defeats the bad guys so that the common folks can live happily in their village. However, the warrior cannot join them as the characteristics that allowed him to save them are the same ones that stop him from ever fitting in. With little dialog and characters that are nothing more than easily identifiable archetypes, The Road Warrior barely varies from the pure hero story. Hey, if it has worked for all these years, why change it?
With explosions, shotgun blasts, car crashes, boomerang attacks, a tiny open helicopter, flamethrowers, and a poisonous snake, this is a fun film. I first saw it many years ago on a double bill with Mad Max, and while the audience was quiet and sullen at intermission, The Road Warrior changed those people into a cheering crowd well before it was over. Gibson is good as the troubled “man from the desert,” but it is Vernon Wells’ painted, dangerous, nutcase, leaping from car to truck, attacking with a ball and chain, and screaming, that you will remember. He is a formidable villain. By comparison, Lord Humongous is flat, and does little besides make a few speeches.
While it is an all-emotion-no-thought movie, I’d like to have seen a few seconds go into making the world a touch more reasonable. I was occasionally pulled out of the picture when, after being shown how valuable gas was, there are scenes of everyone wasting it by driving in circles (the attacking horde would be bone dry long ago). Plus there is the question of food. And transmission fluid. And break fluid. And spark plugs. And who is it that maintains the roads? Those are little things, but they do take away from the film.
The Road Warrior also produces that slightly uncomfortable feeling I get from old westerns when the noble white man is shootin’ those savage ‘Ingins.’ It is at its heart, a very conventional and conservative movie. The good guys (wearing white no less) all want to start traditional families in a traditional environment. The bad guys are homosexual (I spotted one female with the marauders), dressing in a mix of gay club-wear, BDSM outfits, and punk regalia, and using chains to lead about their submissives. What does that imply? Like most things in The Road Warrior, it’s best not to think about it, and instead smile with wide eyes as the next car goes boom.
Follows Mad Max (1979). Followed by Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and Mad Max: Fury Road (1915).