Category: Home Video

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is the movie that made Mad Max an icon.  As Stefon from Saturday Night Live would say it has everything:  A bodybuilder in a studded cup and a hockey mask, people tied to crazy cars, a gyrocopter, a kid in fur that only speaks in grunts and kills people with a boomerang, and a man with a dog looking for a little juice.  George Miller went all out when me made this film, and it is fantastic.

The movie takes place five years after the events of Mad Max, and the world has continued to spiral out of control.  There is almost no gas left, and people are killing each other for it.  Mad Max must team up with a gyrocopter captain to try and help a group pumping one of the last known oil reserves, but can they get the gas out before The Humongous and his gang take it all by force?

Oh man this movie.  It is so strange, and that is why it works so well.  With the original Mad Max it was too close to what we would expect today, but with The Road Warrior it is completely its own universe, and its own style.  A style so iconic that almost every post apocalyptic movie steals from it.  This movie and Blade Runner pretty much set the tone for every movie about the future.  It was also brilliant that they kept the story so simple.  There are bad guys attacking good guys, and then at the end they chase each other.  It is great, and it lets you take in all the weirdness without getting distracted by some silly story.

As far as acting goes it was all pretty bad, but Mel Gibson came a long way from the first movie, and he was really cementing himself as an action star.  Every one else though?  They just had sneer well, and for the most part they do their jobs, but there is a reason Gibson is pretty much the only person you know from this movie.

The stunt work is spectacular in this film.  It was good in Mad Max, but it is fantastic in Mad Max 2.  The final chase scene is one of the best ever put to film.  It is one of those achievements that you wish they would give a special Oscar to, but that is never going to happen.  Which one of the many reasons the Oscars are so flawed.

If you want to see the movie that defined the post apocalyptic genre, you need to watch Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.  Since they recap the first movie at the start of it you don’t even need to see Mad Max.  That was very nice of them.  I really liked this movie, and I hope Mad Max: Fury Road is more like this movie, and less like the other two because if so we are in for a treat.

With Mad Max: Fury Road coming out this year there was only one thing to do: re-watch all of George Miller’s Mad Max films.  Since I watched them all as a kid on Cable TV it is amazing how different they are then I remembered them.  The first movie Mad Max was especially different than I remember it.  I am guessing that is because they could show so little of it on TV that it was super boring, and Mad Max is anything but boring.

The film is about a cop Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) in the near future.   His job is to try and keep the peace in a world spinning out of control as it runs out of oil.  Crazy motorcycle gangs threaten everyone’s security, even Max’s family.  It is up to Max and his V8 Interceptor to bring these gangs to justice!

When I envision Mad Max I always think of wastelands, rolling sand, crazy cars, and, people in football pads.  That is not this movie.  There are glimpses of that vision in this movie, but this movie is set on the coast of Australia in quaint little towns.  Really not that different than now, and that is what makes this movie almost scary.  It is hard to watch people go crazy and do awful things in what could be current day.  It is haunting.  It is not ‘fun’ like Mad Max’s two sequels.

The acting in this film is all pretty poor.  It is fine since this movie is mostly about high speed chases and crazy people being terrible to the populous, so good acting isn’t super necessary.  You can tell that Mel Gibson was going to be a star though.  He just had better screen presence than the rest of the cast.

Like I said this movie is all about the high speed chases, and the stunt work in this film is great.  With the budget for this movie being so low, I am not sure how safe all the stunt work was, but they did a good job, and George Miller managed to get it all on camera.  Not bad for a first time director.

Mad Max is not the film I thought it was, that movie is Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior  which I will review shortly no doubt, but I am glad that I revisited this film, so I could see Mad Max the way it was meant to be seen.  Not just like forty-five minutes of it on cable.  It was a solid first outing for all involved, and it launched an enduring franchise.

Mrs. Shmee and I recently sat down and watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  What can I say it was Valentine’s Day weekend.  It was directed by John Madden (think Shakespeare in Love not football), and released by Fox Searchlight here in the good ol’ US of A.  This film is as predictable as they come, and it hits you with a lot of schmaltz.  Though with the quality of the of the cast and director it ends up being pretty good anyway.

The idea behind this movie is that a group of old English people can’t afford to live in Britain, so they all reply to an advertisement for a retirement home in India.  The home the titular Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and India are not what they expected, but they will grow and become better people for it.  You know the usual stuff.

The writing really was the weakest part of this film.  It is so cliché, and all the characters are very cookie cutter, but for the most part it does the trick.  It was just a shame they couldn’t elevate it at all.  Had they put a little more effort in this movie it could have been wonderful instead of the usual lovable mush.

The actors are all British film royalty, so even in their basic roles, they are amazing.  They make this movie much better than it should be.  I mean when you have Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, and Tom Wilkinson just to name a few, the movie is always going to be watchable.  Unlike the writers, they do elevate this film.

John Madden you can tell was inspired by filming in India.  It is lavishly shot.  The color and the throngs of people really come though.  It was also nice that he didn’t just show all of India as a giant slum like a lot films like to do these days.  To be fair there are a couple of slums in this movie, and I would guess in India as well, but I am pretty sure that there are nicer parts of the country as well.

Between the actors and director, this film is worth a watch, but if you are expecting something amazing, I am sorry to disappoint you.  It is fun and sweet, but not much more than that.  The sequel is about to hit theaters, so I wonder if it fixed this issues of film, or if they get worse (I am guessing since it is a sequel they get worse).