Old Favourites: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
Sooner or later the world will end. Whether it's in fifty, five hundred or five million years, the world will end and all that we were will be gone. For now, however, we can sit comfy in our lounges and living rooms watching movies about the apocalypse instead of thinking of a reality in which that could come true. Mad Max 2: Road Warrior is one such film that tackles the ideas of Armageddon head-on, setting the story of Max in the rotting corpse of a once ripe earth.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is George Miller's apocalyptic love child, featuring all the gasoline guzzling, fuel induced highway carnage that we have come to expect from a Mad Max film. The balmy Australian outback becomes host to vehicular madness as the dunes are carved up by all manner of battlewagon and bike. The outback compliments the action with its serene yet horrifically desolate landscape. The film is littered with remnants of a bygone era most of which are used to make up the costume, Whether it be junkyard warriors, leather-clad BDSM bandits, or Max himself, the costume is a wonderful scrapheap of just about everything under the sun.
The movie begins and you are violently greeted by a wild symphony of roaring engines and screeching tires. Miller spares no expense in telling you, the viewer, what this film is all about, immersing you within the action from the get-go. It is a simple story that lets the action speak for itself, you are there for the car chases and stay for the car chases, and the plot does its best to facilitate this. The movie revels in the spectacle of highway mayhem with a heavy focus on practical effects. Miller creates a charming movie of car crazed swashbuckling and it is very much a joy to watch.
Max (Mel Gibson) the road warrior is a complex character of constant duality, walking the tightrope of doing what is right for him or right for others. The character carries an aura of mysticism, a lone desert wanderer with nothing more than a leather jacket and a sawn-off shotgun. Gibson personifies this fantastically with a stoic intensity, a deeply broken man but a man who has become moulded by his new apocalyptic setting. Max does not even speak for the first ten minutes, he remains silent allowing the audience to soak in his wasteland glory and the world Miller creates.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is a shot of adrenaline or a third red bull of the day, its high octane wonderful madness. If you are bored in lockdown and need something to keep you entertained, then I suggest looking no further than this film.
