It's increasingly rare that a sequel will wind up being better at all, not to mention significantly better, than it's original. However, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior manages to pull off the impossible, creating a kinetic edge of your seat ride through a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The film is a giant leap forward, so much so that it seems to cast a bit of a shadow over the original film.
We catch up with Max Rockatansky (played again by Mel Gibson) as he is wandering the wasteland the world has become in in his charged up Interceptor police vehicle, now showing a bit worse for wear. We are informed during an opening montage that the world fell into chaos over energy crisis and nuclear war. Now, the few survivors left salvage what they can as gasoline, food and water have become the most precious commodities. During his travels Max crosses paths first with an oddball referred to as the Gyro Captain (played by Bruce Spence) while trying to salvage some gasoline from the Captain's helicopter and then the two encounter together a group of people holed up in a remote oil refinery operation. The group are attacked daily by a roving gang lead by hockey masked Lord Humungus (played by Kjell Nilsson, looking like a sort of post-apocolyptic Jason Voorhees in fetish gear), who are trying to get in and steal the gasoline.
Max is able to make contact with the group and offers them a deal. Give him as much gasoline as his car can carry and he will help them get a rig to transport the gasoline they've refined out and away from the gang outside. Keeping his car as insurance, Max sets out to retrieve a truck he knows about, trailed by a youngster from the group, the Feral Kid (played by Emil Minty), who has taken a liking to Max and is armed with a razor sharp boomerang. After evading Lord Humungus and his cronies and returning with the truck, the stage is set for the final confrontation. Max is left with choice, does he join the group in trying to find a place to settle down or leave and continue on his own?
While from a plot standpoint, Mad Max 2 doesn't break much new ground with a plot that borrows heavily from the Western genre, it tells it's story with a tremendous amount of style and talent. At a lean 96 minutes, the plot moves like a freight train with plenty of action sequences, the biggest being a 13 minute long chase sequence between Lord Humungus and his cronies attacking Max and the tanker truck.
We catch up with Max Rockatansky (played again by Mel Gibson) as he is wandering the wasteland the world has become in in his charged up Interceptor police vehicle, now showing a bit worse for wear. We are informed during an opening montage that the world fell into chaos over energy crisis and nuclear war. Now, the few survivors left salvage what they can as gasoline, food and water have become the most precious commodities. During his travels Max crosses paths first with an oddball referred to as the Gyro Captain (played by Bruce Spence) while trying to salvage some gasoline from the Captain's helicopter and then the two encounter together a group of people holed up in a remote oil refinery operation. The group are attacked daily by a roving gang lead by hockey masked Lord Humungus (played by Kjell Nilsson, looking like a sort of post-apocolyptic Jason Voorhees in fetish gear), who are trying to get in and steal the gasoline.
Max is able to make contact with the group and offers them a deal. Give him as much gasoline as his car can carry and he will help them get a rig to transport the gasoline they've refined out and away from the gang outside. Keeping his car as insurance, Max sets out to retrieve a truck he knows about, trailed by a youngster from the group, the Feral Kid (played by Emil Minty), who has taken a liking to Max and is armed with a razor sharp boomerang. After evading Lord Humungus and his cronies and returning with the truck, the stage is set for the final confrontation. Max is left with choice, does he join the group in trying to find a place to settle down or leave and continue on his own?
While from a plot standpoint, Mad Max 2 doesn't break much new ground with a plot that borrows heavily from the Western genre, it tells it's story with a tremendous amount of style and talent. At a lean 96 minutes, the plot moves like a freight train with plenty of action sequences, the biggest being a 13 minute long chase sequence between Lord Humungus and his cronies attacking Max and the tanker truck.
This film also marks a big change in the way it handles the character of Max from the first one and would be carried over to the third film as well. In this film, Max is very much portrayed as a mythic hero, journeying across the wasteland and helping those he finds in need. This fits in a bit with the Western theme, with this film being a bit of a post-apocalyptic Shane. The entire story is told from the point of view of the Feral Child in retrospect, although this isn't revealed until the end of the film. It's a nice touch by director George Miller and writers Terry Hayes and Brian Hannant. This is also something that would carry over to the third film.
Overall, Mad Max 2 does an excellent job taking what was established with the original film and building on it to create an even better, more effective and thrilling film that was a massive influence on both the science fiction and action genres. It truly was a bit of a game changer and remains to this day a superior action film and quite possibly the best of at least the original trilogy of Mad Max films (although I do have a soft spot for Beyond Thunderdome, but I'll get to that later).
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