Mad Max 2 (1981)
[The Road Warrior]
Director: George Miller
Starring: Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston
Synopsis:
An ex-cop wandering the wastelands agrees to work with a refinery besieged by bandits in exchange for precious gasoline.
Impressions:
Wow. I didn't really just how much almost every postapocalyptic wasteland story in fiction copies this movie until I saw it for myself. I've seem Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome several times, but I never saw this until recently. The first movie more implies societal collapse but here everything has really went to pot. The low budget shows but I honestly think it works in the film's favor. What better way to portray hardscrabble sorts cobbling junk together to get by that actually having to cobble together whatever junk you can find? Kjell Nilsson makes an effective big bad as Lord Humungus (and I like the originally scripted plan for him to be Max's partner Goose fallen to the dark side) and Vernon Wells brings the crazy that would later serve him so well in Commando. And Max's dog, that was a cool dog. Watching it now, you may roll your eyes because it seems to hit almost every stereotype in the book, but that's largely because this movie made the stereotypes. (There are actually some aversions too to keep things interesting.) If you like postapocalyptic films, definitely check this one out.
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