Movie Review: MAD MAX 2 THE ROAD WARRIOR Starring Mel Gibson

If you have been reading my scribbles for a while now then you’ll know that I used to spend quite a bit of my time on Hubpages, there I wrote a “Hub” on the Best 80’s action movies, following the hub I was asked a couple of questions as to why certain movies were no included at the time. One of those just happened to be The Road Warrior, which I thought I hadn’t heard of, turns out I had, only here in England it was named Mad Max 2. The reason it wasn’t mentioned there was the fact that I hadn’t seen the movie, now thanks to much push from regular reader and commenter Ruben I have finally got round to it and have the review here for you now.

Starring: Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston, Vernon Wells and Virginia Hey

The Plot

Former police officer Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) is drifting his way across the rugged Australian landscape following a nuclear war, with nothing left to live for he finds himself on the hunt and in a daily battle for now priceless fuel which he faces off against other scavengers for. On his travels Max runs across a gang of outlaws one of whom he kills, they are laying siege to a local village which has a wealthy fuel reserve which they want control of. With no options left Max agrees to help the community and local feral kid escape the lawless gang of looters.

The Verdict

I think I’m maybe 30 years to late on this movie, as action movies go I think I have now seen many more which are far superior, don’t get me wrong for 1981 which is when this movie was released I can see why it has been given much acclaim over the years, but considering I was not even born in 1981 this is just a little before my time, I still enjoyed the movie but its one I’m pleased to have watched during the day as apposed to a Saturday night entertainment flick.

I read a few reviews of The Road Warrior after watching it and can agree with them, one mentions that it is very un-Hollywood, and yes it is, probably why it didn’t make the best of list which I mentioned above, there are no over the top action sequences, no over the top explosions everything is dealt with on a very basic level keeping special effects to a bear minimum, very easy to do I’d imagine when in the middle of the Australian outback, not many people would be able to hear what you are up to out there. They also mention that its one of the best movies to come out of Australia, since I know precious little about movies which come out of Australia I again agree.

I have actually struggled to find one person who says that they did not enjoy this movie, and that’s from people of all ages, like I said I enjoyed it and I have to agree with everyone else on the Internet about the final car chase (good to see nitrous oxide was invented before Vin Disel came along), it was epic and when that dude popped up from the front grill just as the feral kid went to get the bullets I certainly jumped a little. Mel Gibson is brilliant, I enjoyed this more than the last movie of Mel’s I watched but in terms of overall enjoyment for me the original Lethal Weapon and it's follow-up win the day.

The Road Warrior did make me chuckle a couple of times, The Gyro-Captain (Bruce Spence) is a pretty funny guy and when Max originally took him hostage I thought it was a pretty funny scene as the dog had a bone in his mouth which was attached to the trigger of the gun pointing at his head, however the Gyro-Captain was later to learn that the gun never had any bullets in it.

A quick glance at the top 5 I picked from the 80’s just in case you don’t want to follow the link above and read my reasoning in full, in no particular order;

Commando (1985)

Die Hard (1988)

Terminator (1984)

Lethal Weapon (1987)

First Blood (1982)

For me personally I don’t think Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior was as enjoyable as any of those movies, maybe if I had seen it back in the day, I don’t know.

Would I watch it again?

Even though some reviews I’ve read say it’s a movie which should be watched twice I don’t feel any particular need to go watch this over again.