I don’t believe I’ve ever properly watched any of the original Mad Max films after all so I thought I should watch at least one of them. The second one is widely considered the best of the lot as George Miller only had a very small budget when he made the first film and it’s actually set just before the apocalypse. The third film has Tina Turner but the violence is toned down. So the Road Warrior it is, as it’s known in the US. As with every film in the franchise, it’s all about vehicle combat and without the even bigger budget of Fury Road, it can’t match the spectacle of the newer film. But I also found that its groundedness makes it a more realistic film and I liked what it shows of Max’s character.

With only his faithful Dog at his side, Max roams the badlands of what was once Australia in his V8 Interceptor. When attacked by a group of marauders, he manages to outdrive them, scavenges fuel from one of their wrecked vehicles and notices a crashed semi-truck. He later stops to check out a strange gyrocopter by the side of the road but it turns out to be trap by the Gyro Captain who has run out of fuel. Max gets the better of the captain and takes him prisoner with the help of Dog. To save himself, the captain leads Max to the location of an oil refinery that is still in operation. A group of settlers hold the refinery but it is besieged by marauders including those Max had fought off previously. The next morning, Max watches as the settlers attempt a breakout in a few vehicles but are quickly overtaken by the marauders. Max intervenes and saves one of them, bringing him back to the refinery in exchange for the promise of fuel. But the man dies upon arrival and the marauders led by a Lord Humungus arrive to give the settlers an ultimatum. He offers them safe passage if they voluntarily give up the refinery. Max offers his own deal, saying that he can bring them the semi-rig to transport their fuel to a safer home if they give him as much fuel as he can carry.

Watching this, it’s immediately evident how closely the action set-pieces and character designs resemble that of Fury Road. We have Max driving a large tanker while being repeatedly attacked by marauders who clamber all over it, thes marauder lashing people to the front of their vehicles, crashes and explosions galore etc. The newer film is far superior as pure spectacle with better visual effects, props and larger scale. On the other hand, the more grounded action makes this feel more real, something that could be our near-future reality instead of some exotic fantasy world. Max isn’t some invincible action hero here, he’s just a slightly more skilled than average guy and often wins only through luck. The villains similarly talk big and act tough as part of their persona but are really nothing special. Yet because they seem like mostly ordinary people, the brutal violence carries a lot of impact. The steel boomerang thrown by the feral kid taking off the top of a guy’s head is real holy shit moment. There’s a point when you feel Max might actually die. You feel like there are real stakes involved so the action is engrossing even though it doesn’t look as slickly produced as modern films.

Mel Gibson won major plaudits for his role in this but it’s striking how little emotional affect he has here and how little he has to say. I know that after losing his family in the first film, the character is supposed to be hardened and bitter. He looks out only for himself and has no intention of being a hero. What’s great is that the setting totally plays into this cynicism and the settlers treat him accordingly. I was frustrated about them giving Max so little support in their breakout so it was pretty great to have them take him up at his word and just use him. The worldbuilding is strong too despite the sparse detail. The nonspeaking feral kid with his grimaces is a harbinger of the future of humanity in this broken world. The widespread use of bows, crossbows and the settlers’ flamethrowers reinforces the point that ammunition for firearms is scarce as we can see from Lord Humungus babying his last few rounds. It’s very understandable how this define a whole new cinematic genre.

This still does have all of the foibles of 1980s action movies. I found the music overbearing and overly loud while what little dialogue there is to be too soft. It’s silly that the factions are color-coded with the settlers in white and the marauders in black. The character of Max also seems fixed in stone and doesn’t change even after his near death. There’s no reason why he wouldn’t join the settlers apart from the fact that it wouldn’t match his archetype and it would end the franchise. It’s not a serious film and it’s not all that great, but it is a good action movie that holds up surprisingly well.