Starring: Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston, Max Phipps, Vernon Wells Directed By: George Miller (II) Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Warner Home Video Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: March 26, 1997 Running Time: 95 minutes Theatrical Release Date: May 21, 1982
Amazon.com: A strong candidate for the designation of most thrilling action movie ever made (the turbo-charged exhilaration of its full-throttle highway chases has never been equaled), the second part of George Miller's post-apocalyptic trilogy is also a magnificently imagined movie myth. Like the Star Wars trilogy (by that other George) the Mad Max films draw their inspiration from the works of mythologist Joseph Campbell. In the 1979 original, Max (Mel Gibson) is a policeman, the last guardian of civilization and order in a devastated world reduced to chaos. But when a leather-clad gang of sadomasochistic speed demons mows down Max's family, his remaining connections to humanity are also permanently severed. After brutally exacting his revenge, Max wanders off into the wasteland alone, "a burned out shell of a man" who (to paraphrase The Searchers) is destined to wander forever between the winds. In The Road Warrior, Max rediscovers a sliver of his shattered humanity, and a spark of redemption, when he helps an embattled colony of pioneers fight off the savages who are after that most precious of all commodities: "guzzline." Max is transformed into a legendary hero, just as Mel Gibson was catapulted to international movie stardom. With its final stirring images, The Road Warrior transcends its genre (whatever that may be--science fiction? Western? action adventure?) and becomes something timeless. It's a great movie. --Jim Emerson
Best movie ever made It started with Mad Max, then Road Warrior, and finaly Beyond the Thunderdome. All three movies are great, but Road warrior is by the best. Max drives a car around stealing gas when he finds it until he has to help a group of people escape from their gas stronghold. A group of banidits makes this much harder than it sounds, because they to want gas. Watch the movie to fall in love with it.
Max used to be a cop with a family A son and a wife to love, now that is all gone, he is by himself with only a dog for company. He helps guard the juice.
Unique and Marvelous. I first saw this movie over 20 years ago and didn't like it because I didn't like any of the characters. Flashforward two decades and I now like at least six of them. That tells you the way time builds human understanding. As a kid I assumed that the world was a good place, but now I know it to be equal parts good and evil. Few films showcase this eventuality more artfully and powerfully than the Road Warrior. This is an amazing production and I truly envy you if you've never seen it before.
The Road Warrior is both entertaining and deeply enlightening. There is more truth in its portrayal of human nature than a million self-help books and a hundred Hollywood movies. Civilization's veneer is thin. Without police and a government we would revert to shameful behaviors and attempt to survive by any means necessary. Max and the Gyro Captain are great but I still think that the feral boy character steals the spotlight from everyone else. The movie also tells us much about the nature of friendship along with the way we quickly bond with others in times of need. If you haven't seen it please do.
WOW So it is the future and gasoline is like gold. Well this is obviously dated because when I fill up now I feel like I am paying a gold bar for a tank. Besides that, most of the places now do not allow you to pump and then pay, because so many people are stealing from the pumps. They call these "Driveoffs" and we need a guy like the one Gibson plays in this movie to chase them down!
The nice thing is in this movie is that on these roads you do not have to worry about a speed limit. So yeah, sorry peoples but the radar detector you just got would be worthless in this film.
The part that is not realistic is of course the roads themselves. C'mon peoples everywhere you go they are always having detours due to construction and road repair, in reality if this kind of thing played out, you would get a flat tire from all the potholes and debris that would fill up on the road over time. I mean really where are the streetsweepers? You have to be realistic even in a Science Fiction environment, but hey no problem, it is still good.
A fight to the death for gasoline The second film of the trilogy is getting off the banality of the first one with its rape, infanticide and vengeance. Here we get to a world that is a real war to the death of one tribe against another and there is no law anywhere close. It is war for survival hence for the only thing that has some value in this desertic world where you can only move safely in motor vehicles, hence with gas. A fight for a tanker of gas, that's what the stake is. Mad Max gets on the side that controls the tanker in order to get gas for his car and he manages to serve them in a way and be accepted, though he tries to go away on his own when the service is finished. But he gets wrecked and has to be brought back by some accessory to the action who has some kind of unidentifiable flying object, some kind of ancestor of the chopper. So he will be the hero of the essential part of the film, the chase after the tanker. We will follow it with anxiety especially since a tanker like that is a bomb on wheels. The successive attacks against the tanker will be creative and some people will die on both sides and the driver will be seriously endangered by the attackers, to the point that he will not be able to avoid the final crash. And surprise, surprise, the tanker will not explode. The good old valueless gas had been transferred to the school bus in which the women were traveling. But the wreck of the tanker will incite the attackers, or what's left of them, to go away. Strangely enough they will not verify the content of the tanker and will not be able to think that the gas was somewhere else: these attackers are barbarians somewhere, hence they are intellectually retarded. And the final leg of the migration to safety could start and Mad Max could disappear in a mirage in the desert like some sand on a wind. Entertaining but in no way too intellectual: you will not get any nightmares nor headaches. Just funny after all. But that kind of chase will be imitated galore in the coming years after 1981. And that's probably one reason why it became cult: it was one of the very first films to work on the technique of shooting and editing such a chase.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
