Swaggering through a post-apocalyptic Aussie outback future
where very little remains but desert and everyone dresses like a spiky-haired,
over-accessorised 80s punk, Mel Gibson returns as hard-as-granite rebel Mad Max
Rockatansky, and he’s pissed. Gibson is on fine form as the grizzled, heroic lawman
who wanders the outback, scavenging for survival, righting wrongs and skelping
bad guys in the face. Looking slightly fruitier with long hair and a flowing
tunic, Mad Mel is, thankfully, still a reliably gritty and intimidating
presence, more than capable of equalising entire units of fearsome cyber-punks
with little more than some badass attitude and his wily wits.
In the third
instalment of George Miller’s classic Road Warrior series set in a world where,
due to energy shortages, society has broken down and lawlessness is rife, someone
has pinched Max’s automobile, so he sets off to settle the score. Arriving at
the intimidating, seedy desert outpost of Bartertown, ruled over by the
sadistic Aunty Entity (Tina Turner!), Max wastes no time making his presence
felt. When he’s stopped and threatened by some scary blokes with swords, Max
whips out a Big Fucking Gun (B.F.G.) and shoots the hair clean off one guy’s
head, just to show he’s not messing around. He explains he’s looking for
something someone owes him and he ain’t leaving til this shit gets sorted out. When he’s told that he can’t go any further
until he surrenders his weapns at the door, Max cheekily produces an entire
arsenal from under his cloak: crossbows, knives, guns, the lot. It’s a hilarious scene and sums up this man’s headspace: he lives for war.
Upon hearing of his
potential as an enterprising whupper-of-ass, Aunty swiftly strikes a deal with
Max, promising to help him if he agrees to provoke a fight with the diminutive
Master, who controls the town’s energy resources and challenges her leadership.
In Bartertown, electricity, vehicles, functioning technology are made possible
by a crude methane refinery, fuelled, quite wonderfully, by pig pooh. Master,
carried around by his massive, masked bodyguard, known as Blaster, has started
getting cocky, putting embargoes in place that are starting to make Aunty look
daft, so she wants Max to challenge him to a fight in the Thunderdome, a
terrifying colosseum where feuds are settled mano-a-mano. Max thinks ‘why the
hell not?’ He loves a good fight. As if to prove this point, he passes his ‘audition’
by seriously maiming three of Aunty’s warrior goons. Fair dinkum!
Going undercover to
size up his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, Max takes up a highly
unenviable job shovelling pig shit in the underworld, where he discovers that Master
Blaster is the one who has taken possession of his vehicle. Master also turns
out to be a right cocky little bugger who likes bullying his workers and
shouting grans statements like ‘Me run Bartertown!!!’ Max cuts the jerk down to
size by saying, ‘Sure, that’s why you live in shit!’ but has to bide his time, when all he really wants to do is
slit the guy’s throat. Eventually he realises that big lug Blaster (who wears a
ridiculous helmet that looks like a bin) is susceptible to high pitched sounds
and figures this is his chance to beat the guy, so he seizes his chance and challenges
him to a fight in Thunderdome where, as the locals never tire of chanting, ‘two
men enter, one man leaves.’ Nice.
The Thunderdome is a
deliciously savage creation, a massive dome-shaped cage filled with spikes,
booby-traps and what-have-you, where both combatants are strapped to massive
stretchy bungee cords and forced to do battle with whatever weapons the
onlookers throw to them, whilst athletically bouncing around like acrobats.
Upon entering, one wild-eyed spectator tells Max, ‘I know you won’t break any
rules – there aren’t any!’ Though I guess this isn’t strictly true, as the
whole crowd continue to chant the whole ‘two men enter…’ mantra. Silly bugger!
Still, the battle is
immense, with Max somersaulting all over the place, trying to outwit the human
juggernaut as they go at each other with everything from spears to chainsaws. Our
hero, armed with a whistle that he hopes to use to deafen his adversary, ends
up taking a hell of a beating and drops his secret weapon. Bruised and
battered, he resorts to Plan B: kicking Blaster’s head in. Displaying
athleticism worthy of the most spry, wiry jungle monkey, Max outwits his
opponent and eventually gets the better of him, knocking off his helmet and
deafening him with the now retrieved whistle, before doing him in with a
massive hammer.
However, just as he
is about to deliver the killing blow, Max realises that his opponent is actually
mentally-handicapped and refuses to kill him. It is a cracking display of
compassion and even as the crowd chant for Max to finish him, he refuses – this
was not part of the deal. As he stands down, Aunty’s goons step in and finish
the job with a crossbow, leading one to wonder why they didn’t just do that in
the first place. Max is made to pay for being such an honourable and just dude
in these times of lawlessness, as Aunty banishes him from town, tying him to a
horse and sending him out to the desert to die.
Luckily, Max is a
clever bugger and sneakily attaches a gourd of water to a monkey and sends it
out into the desert for him to find later, just before he is banished. Smart! However, this only gets our hero so
far and eventually he succumbs to the harsh desert heat. Staring death in the
face, Max thinks his number is up, before he is rescued by Savannah (Helen
Buday), leader of a bunch of desert-dwelling kids who have formed their own
tribal community, like a futuristic version of Peter Pan’s Lost Boys.
After getting a
much-needed haircut, Max is back to his sleek, short-haired best and accepted
as the saviour of this gang of savage-but-innocent urchins who speak their own
muddled up language and are convinced that he has come to lead them back to what
they quite irritatingly call ‘Tomorrow-morrow Land.’ Max tries to convince them
that they’re better off where they are, and he’s not far wrong, as their little
forest community is the closest the Mad Max franchise has ever got to paradise.
Max, as always, is looking after the best interests of the innocent and knows
that the nearest township is Bartertown – a horrible, unforgiving sleaze-pit
that will surely chew them up and spit them out.
However, the Savannah
sees his coming as a sign and is determined to leave anyway, so when Max tries
to stop her, some of the young ones rise up and attack him with spears. Of
course, a bunch of kids is no match for
The Road Warrior, who shows he’s not to be messed with by punching Savannah,
knocking her out for her own good. Despite his efforts, the rebels set off
anyway, forcing Max to chase after them and show off his hero credentials by
rescuing them from killer quicksand.
Lost in the desert
and conceding that heading to Bartertown might now be their only hope for
survival, Max leads the kids back for a final face-off against Aunty’s evil
empire. Using the kids to help sneak back into the methane refinery, Max starts
a revolution by blowing the place to smithereens, taking half the town with it,
before whizzing off in liberated car-cum-train vehicle thingamajig. At long
last, the sort of high speed vehicular battle that made the series famous
ensues and it is well worth the wait.
A squadron of
baddies give chase in a fleet of amazing, souped-up off-road cars and
monster-trucks, giving Max and his new pals the opportunity to off them in a
variety of thrilling ways. Max shows off his superior driving skills by leaping
from car to car and battering the drivers, not pausing for a moment’s breath.
It is a great sequence with some amazing stunt work: Mad Max at his best. Stunt
drivers clearly earned their wages on this one, as cars dangerously swerve
across rail tracks and off cliffs as the baddies do all they can to get
revenge.
Eventually
commandeering a small plane to assist their escape, the gang realise that they
are carrying too much weight to take off. Max, heroic as ever, gets off the
plane, sacrificing himself to ensure these kids a better future than the one
offered by aunty and her wretched disciples. He bravely drives a truck straight
at the convoy of pursuing villains in order to clear a path for his new pals to
take off, hence saving the day. Max displays such bravery that, catching up,
aunty decides to just spare him and drives off, laughing. That is seriously
cool: here’s a guy that is so courageous, the villain just lets him go out of
respect for the size of his balls.
What a Hard Bastard!
THE RATINGS:
INDESTRUCTIBILTY: 6/10 – Battles armies of tooled-up
future-punks and rarely looks ruffled, though does depend on a whistle to save his bacon. A close
shave!
COMBAT SKILLS: 7/10 – Shows his skills with all manner of
weapons and bounces about the Thunderdome like a spider-monkey!
ATTITUDE: 9/10 – Does it all for the kids. Dude! Could do
with more one-liners, though…
OUTRAGEOUSNESS: 7/10 - Jumps from car to car like a lunatic,
and all good heroes should have helper monkeys, just in case.
BODY COUNT: 4 kills in 107 minutes – not very mad! 1/10
MEL’S SCORE: 30/50
MEL’S AVERAGE SCORE: 26.667/50 – a lot of work still to do!
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