Movie Monday – Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

My introductory post.  

Mad Max: Fury Road on IMDB  

 (Spoilers)

The movie starts with Max being captured by Immortal Joe’s War Boys and is taken to the Citadel.  Here Joe rules because he pumps underground water up for the parched masses.  Max is used as a blood bag – he’s a Universal Donor – and is hooked up to transfuse the War Boy Nux, who is slowly dying from … in reality probably a combination of post-apocalyptic diseases.

Meanwhile, Furiosa sets off in a rig to a nearby town for gasoline, or something.  But she turns off the road.  This confuses her escort at first, but she tells them it’s a raiding mission, or something.  Joe figures out that Furiosa has “stolen” his “wives.” So he sets out to reclaim them. 

At first Nux was to stay behind, but he has them hook Max up to his car so he can go and have a glorious death and be reborn.  There’s a chase and battle, and Furiosa goes into a sandstorm with Nux right behind.  He wrecks and Max has a chance to escape, except he’s still chained to Nux. 

Furiosa’s rig is plugged with sand, and while she’s fixing it the wives are cutting off their chastity belts.  Max shows up with Nux, and has them cut him loose.  He tries to steal the rig, but Furiosa has it set so only she can drive it.  Max, Furiosa, and the wives come to a bit of a truce.

Furiosa had made a deal with a rival gang, but they hadn’t planned on fighting all of Joe’s army, so they turn on them and there’s a big fight.  Most of Joe’s army is delayed, but Joe’s car is still in the chase.  Nux is onboard and has a chance to stop the rig, but flops right in front of Joe.  One of the wives dies, and Joe is delayed.

Max learns that they are heading to the “Green Place” which Furiosa remembers as a child.  One of the wives finds Nux hiding on the back of the rig, and comforts him saying that perhaps he has an even grander death waiting for him.  When the rig gets stuck in mud, Nux helps them out.

They finally make it to the Green Place and Furiosa is reunited with her people.  But the Green Place is no longer green.  At first, everyone but Max was going to try to cross this vast desert in the hopes of finding someplace new.  But Max realizes that the Citadel – with all its water – is now undefended.  So they all turn around to go back.

There’s a lot of chasing and fighting, Nux dies blocking the road, Furiosa is hurt and loses a lot of blood but Max is a Universal Donor, and Immortal Joe is killed.  Furiosa returns with Joe’s body, and there’s a big celebration.  She’s a hero, and Max slips away in the crowd.

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Of the four Mad Max movies, this is my favorite.  The reason is for something some people had an issue with the movie: Furiosa.  If the movie had just been Max shows up, the wives hire him to help them escape, explosions, I would have thought it just an okay movie, probably tied with Mad Max 2 as my favorite of the series.  Because, I’ve figured out, I’m not a fan of Max.  He’s an interesting character, but I don’t think he can hold a movie on his own.  Furiosa is more interesting.  (I don’t know if it’s just because Beyond Thunderdome was the only other Max movie I had seen, but when I think of interesting characters from the Max Universe, Master Blaster is near the top.  I’ll have to think who I find more interesting; Furiosa or Master Blaster.)  If it wasn’t for the fact that Furiosa is now just administering the Citadel, I’d be interested in a sequel with her.

As to my thoughts about a modern post-apocalypse movie.  Um, it was good.  It wasn’t cheesy with decaying ruins, or anything like that.  It fits with what I would expect from a modern post-apocalypse movie, if that makes any sense.

Movie Monday – Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

My introductory post.  

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome on IMDB  

(Spoilers)

This movie starts with Max going across the desert in his camel drawn truck/wagon when he’s knock over by Jedediah and his son in a plane.  They steal his stuff and go off, with Max’s monkey throwing a few supplies out for him.

Max follows them to Bartertown.  His quickness with a gun leads to a meeting with Aunty who started Bartertown.  She hires Max to kill a guy, without it being known that Aunty ordered it.  In exchange, he’ll get all his stuff back.

The man they need killed is Blaster.  He is a big guy with a metal hood.  He carries Master – a smart, little person – on his back.  Together, Master Blaster run the pig farm/methane plant that powers Bartertown.  Max works in the factory to get a closer look at Blaster, and discovers he doesn’t like loud noises, like whistles.

The way he has to kill Blaster is in the Thunderdome.  This is a metal cage where “Two men enter; one man leaves.” They fight, and Max – with his whistle – finally gets the upper hand.  He knocks off Blaster’s hood revealing a mentally disabled boy.  Max tells Aunty that wasn’t part of the deal.  Her goons kill Blaster, and then since Max went back on a deal – one of the laws of Bartertown – he spins the wheel of punishment.  He gets “Gulag,” which means he’s tied to a horse and sent off into the desert.

The horse eventually dies and falls into a sand sinkhole.  Max probably would have died if a guy he met at the factory didn’t send his monkey out with a waterskin. 

Max walks further into the desert and passes out.  He’s found by Savannah, who takes him back to her village in a canyon oasis.  When he wakes up, he is told the story of how they got there.  During the nuclear war, a plane crashed in the desert and the survivors found the oasis and decided to stay.  But after a few years, the adults left their kids to go find civilization, saying someone would be back.  They think Max is the promised return of Captain Walker.  He tells them he isn’t.  Some believe him, but others – led by Savannah – think it’s all a test so they go out to find civilization.

The other kids ask Max to bring them back.  He and a few others set out and rescue some of the kids from one of these sand sinkholes.  They then realize that they are near Bartertown.  So they sneak into the factory to grab Master, because he’s smart enough to help them rebuild society.  Max and the kids take out Aunty’s guards who are holding him, and make a break for it in this truck train that runs on this old railway track.

Aunty gets all her dune buggies to go chasing after them to get Master back, because he’s the only one that can fix the factory and keep the lights on in Bartertown. 

The truck train has to eventually stop because Jedediah’s son has blocked the track as a holdup.  But he runs away when he sees Aunty’s troops.  Max and gang follow him into Jedediah’s underground bunker.  They all get on the plane to fly away, but they need room to take off.  So Max gets in a car and plays chicken with Aunty’s troops.  Everyone else flies off, but Max is left for Aunty, who laughs and leaves him.

Jedediah flies the kids to the ruins of Sydney, where they start to rebuild.  And they leave lights on to guide wanderers – like Max – to them.

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Unlike the other movies I’ve reviewed for my Movie Mondays, I’ve actually seen this one before.  It was probably twenty years ago, at least, since I saw it last, but there were a few things I remembered such as Master Blaster and that there were a bunch of kids. 

Over the years, I had heard that a lot of the Mad Max fans find Beyond Thunderdome their least favorite.  Now that I’ve seen all four, I’d probably rank it third, just above the first one.  (Given that I find the second my second favorite, can you guess where I rank Fury Road?)  I go with the general consensus that the Bartertown stuff was good, but the stuff with the kids was just … kind of stupid.  On one hand I can see it as an interesting setup, but it either needed a movie on its own to explore it more, or fit in with Bartertown more.  As it is, it’s practically two movies smooshed together.  If instead of the kids, Max had ran into some anti-Aunty faction wanting to take down Bartertown, it would have been a more cohesive movie.

Movie Monday – Mad Max 2, or the Road Warrior (1981)

My introductory post.  

Mad Max 2 on IMDB  

(Spoilers)

The movie starts with a narration about how war has destroyed the world and gas is a rare commodity.  People roam the wastelands looking for food and scraps trying to avoid the vicious gangs.

We meet Max being chased by some of these gang members.  He gets to a truck acting like a bit of a roadblock and that’s the gang’s boundary, or something, because the surviving members turn around and leave him.

Later, Max comes across an autogyro to see if it has any fuel.  Instead, Max is captured by the pilot.  But Max overpowers him, and the pilot tells him about a nearby oil refinery with a tanker full of gas.

Max takes the pilot to this refinery, which is besieged by Lord Humungus and his gang, the same ones that were chasing him earlier.  Max watches them from a nearby hill for a day or two.  At one point, some of the people in the refinery make a break for it with their cars going in different directions.  Max watches as one of the cars is taken out.

Once the gang leaves this car, Max goes to it and finds the driver who is near death.  He makes a deal with Max that if he takes him back to the refinery, he’ll get all the gas he can carry.

Max takes him back to the refinery, but the guy dies and the people there think he must be involved with the gang and they take his car. 

Before Max can talk his way out of the refinery, Lord Humungus shows up with the people from the other cars.  He says that he’ll let everyone leave if they give him the gas.  Otherwise, he’ll kill all of them.  Some of the people want to take the offer, but others say that the gas is their future.  But they don’t have a truck to haul the tanker.  At this, Max speaks up saying he knows where there’s a truck to haul the tanker, he just asks for all the gas he can carry.

They give him a few gallons of gas, and he goes back to the pilot.  They fly the autogyro to the roadblock, and Max drives the truck back to the refinery with the pilot giving him some help to get through Humungus’ gang. 

The refinery people ask Max to stay and drive the truck, but he figures he’s kept his side of the bargain, and gets a few drums of gas in his car.  Max leaves the refinery, but the gang makes his car crash.  So they don’t get their hands on it, or the gas, Max sets off a bomb and blows it up.

The pilot flies out and picks up Max and takes him back to the refinery.  Max then offers to drive the truck with the tanker out.  While he goes one way – with a few of the refinery people helping him – the rest go another way to go to their “promised land” on the coast.  A few of Humungus’ gang go into the refinery, but it blows up.

There’s a long chase, but most of the Humungus’ gang are killed, including Humungus himself.  But eventually, the truck and tanker roll over revealing that it is only full of sand.  The refinery people had put the gas in drums and put them in all the other cars that slipped out while the gang chased Max.  The pilot goes with them, and Max goes off alone again.

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I do find it a bit funny how gas is a rare and precious commodity, so of course people go racing across the desert at 90mph in cars that aren’t very aerodynamic.  I know, movies require a bit of suspension of disbelief, but this is a bit much for me.

I don’t understand why Mad Max is considered such a classic movie.  To me, it didn’t seem to have much of a plot.  That’s why my recap of it was just a paragraph.  Mad Max 2 does have more of a plot – which you can tell by my longer recap – and for that reason I enjoyed it more.  However, looking back at it now, it just seems like a generic 80s post-apocalypse movie.  Perhaps if I had seen it back then, I would be more attached to it as a groundbreaking thing, instead of just seeing it for all the cheap knockoffs.  But it does make me more curious about Mad Max: Fury Road, to see how I feel about a modern movie about this.  But that will have to wait for two weeks.