![]() ![]() This selfish behavior soon comes back to haunt him. (One of the best bits of humor in the film occurs while the mechanic and his assistants are trying to suss out the damage of the rig.) But in true Western anti-hero fashion, Max, having satisfied his end of the bargain, plans to take his fuel and hit the road rather than stick it out to see that the survivors successfully escape the facility. Of course, our hero gets the truck back to the refinery in one piece, more or less. It's a great setup, made even better by the white-knuckle chase scene that unfolds as Lord Humungus' thugs try to run Max's rig off the road. What's a Road Warrior to do with all that crude up for grabs? Unluckily for everyone else, that refinery is encircled by the violent gangsters led by Lord Humungus, with only a few defenders under the command of Pappagallo left to defend the facility. Luckily for him, his new partner leads him to a nearby oil refinery out in the desert. ![]() Though he does his best to get by on his own (with the addition of his trusty dog sidekick and a somewhat less trustworthy gyro captain tagalong), Max soon runs low on fuel. Max, a lawless loner doing what he can to survive after the MFP goes defunct, uses his skills behind the wheel of his V8 Interceptor to outwit a band of motorcycle/dune buggy/roadster-driving gangsters. A lone lawman rides into town for supplies and is unwittingly drawn into defending a small group of innocents against a band of outlaws. And while Mad Max was squarely in the mode of Australian New Wave, The Road Warrior borrowed heavily from classic American Westerns. The stunts are more brazen, the characters even more over the top, and the stakes are even higher this time around (plus there's a dog, so the movie is already better). This reality was only inferred in the first film, so it was great to see that The Road Warrior confirmed it, especially because even the heroic Max could not escape the world war's disastrous effects.Īmplification is the name of the game for this sequel. It seems that Max's world takes place after a horrific world war that consumes most of the available fuel supply and sends civilization into chaos with scavenging, looting, and pillaging becoming the new norm. The first was the storytelling style, which was less of a "figure it out as you go" narrative and more of a "legend in the making." While the first film left viewers with little exposition to provide background or context, the sequel opens with a framing story that serves both as a refresher for the events of Mad Max and a historical waypoint. However, Mad Max 2 made two substantial changes that deviated from the original film. The sequel stayed true to its roots, playing up the ruthless violence needed for survival on the wide-open roads of the dystopian, post-apocalyptic world. As discussed in my retrospective review of Mad Max, the surprising worldwide hit of 1979 was exemplary of Australian New Wave cinema.
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