THE ROAD WARRIOR Starring Vince Neil as the gay villain's lover (well, not really) First off: yes, I know that the original title of this movie is Mad Max 2, and it was retitled in North America because most of us at the time hadn't heard of Mad Max. That having been said, I'm reviewing it under the newer title because that's the version I've always seen; for all I know, those copies under the title Mad Max 2 are a different cut. I always review movies under the title of the version I see. Now, I can't believe that in the fifteen or so years since I first saw this movie (and I've seen it several times since) I'd always thought that the stock-footage world-conflict montage at the beginning depicted a nuclear war. It doesn't; it just depicts a further decline in society but more or less the same state of affairs as we'd seen in Mad Max, except some sort of non-nuclear military exchange has done in all the oil refineries. Again, for all we know, only Australia's oil refineries have been destroyed - maybe the rest of the world is in fine shape. Or, more intriguing yet, maybe the oil shortages really are global, and while society is in decline, the planet itself is doing better than ever, and actually looks great in locations which this series of films doesn't go near. So, the film starts, giving us a brief rundown of the events of Mad Max and how his world (or at least his country) went further down the toilet after that film. At least in the last movie, people ate real food; now they eat canned dog food if they're picky like Max, and each other if they're not. Now showing streaks of grey in his hair, Max (Mel Gibson again) roams the wasteland in his old experimental police Interceptor, gathering the more-precious-than-just-about-anything fuel in any way that he can (one early scene has him collecting it in pots and pans from a crashed vehicle). One day, he comes across a small-scale but obviously productive oil refinery built around an existing pumpjack, armored and armed to the teeth to protect itself from the threatening gangs outside. When Max saves the life of a refinery worker who is attacked in a gang raid, he sees a way to solve his own gas problems for a while, though those in the refinery won't let it happen cheaply, especially with the gang continually returning to make increasingly credible-sounding threats. A lot of people complain that Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome played things too "fun" and "light", but I'd disagree; more on that film specifically in its own review, but The Road Warrior is a distinctly more "fun" and "light" movie than its predecessor. Its action scenes are played for thrills, not horror. Mad Max had a horrifying scene where one man's hand is torn off; The Road Warrior's dismemberment scene (where one guy gets his fingers sliced off) is played for laughs. The Road Warrior has a woman get killed while defending a tanker, and she just hangs off the side; Mad Max would've let her fall underneath the wheels. There are a few moments of such visceral power here (such as when Max's dog is shot, or when gang leader Lord Humongous shows up with two innocents strapped to the front of his car), but for the most part, this is much more the good-time rock 'em-sock 'em drive-in flick. Somebody even calls the villain "The Ayatollah Of Rock-And-Rolla"! Guns are almost nowhere to be seen here; the world (or at least Australia) must have run out of ammunition (without producing any more) just like it ran out of gas, and Max has the only sawed-off shotgun in sight. Instead, bows and crossbows are the missile weapons of choice, since, as is nicely demonstrated in one scene where mohawked villain Vernon Wells shoots himself in the arm, you can retrieve and re-use your ammo. The cast is mostly fine; Gibson is suitably burnt-out and survival-oriented, Wells is a real hoot as the stark-raving-mad (and apparently gay) Wez, and Bruce Spence is likeable as a gyrocopter pilot with awful teeth who sees a good reason to side with the refinery. The hockey-masked Lord Humongous (one-time Olympic trainer Kjell Nilsson) makes for a rather disappointing villain, though; he looks great, with the hockey mask, huge muscles and what looks like some bondage gear, but he never gets out of his car, and his amplified threats are all wheezed, like he's got asthma. His speeches are less than intimidating, but at least they're well thought-out and literate, which is a rather shocking change from most cinematic hockey-masked villains (do keep in mind that this movie predates Jason Voorhees' acquisition of a hockey mask by a couple of years). Gotta love that scene where he looks like he's conducting the score, though. It's a fine film, but certainly the least of the Mad Max movies to these eyes. It lacks the stark, harrowing brutality of the first film, the humor and imagination of the third, and the human element of both. With a bigger budget, George Miller is able to deliver a much larger-scale climactic car chase (with all sorts of desert vehicles trying to lay siege to a speeding tanker), and while it definitely works, it lacks the bloody-nosed punch of its predecessor. Gibson has the least to do here, basically playing Max as a grumpy loner whose thoughts never go beyond his immediate survival - not inappropriate, but not exactly fascinating either. In terms of character development, the only big change we see in him is that it's getting increasingly obvious just how flawed he is, when he makes some big and costly mistakes. And in terms of villainy, only Wells really gives us someone to root against. Mad Max's central theme was the question of whether there are any heroes anymore. The Road Warrior doesn't seem to want to address that theme, giving us maybe the least satisfying of the three movie's answers: there are, but Max isn't one of them. Max might do things here which might be considered beneficial to others, but hardly heroic; nothing he does here is for any reason other than his own self-interest, or his lacking of other options once he's painted himself into a corner. There are characters here who might fit the bill - Spence's gyrocopter pilot, for example, and maybe even the Feral Kid who can kill with a boomerang. But Max, for now, is an antihero at best, bearing little resemblance to the man who once quit his job in law enforcement to avoid becoming like the very scum he hunted down. The Road Warrior delivers the goods in spades, but it's never anything more than "just" a superb action movie. That's not a complaint, just an explanation of why it never reaches the level of the other two films. (and yes, I'm aware that my position that the third film is the best is an unpopular one) Still, for what it offers, it's hard to beat. BACK TO THE R's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE