Third entry on the "Mad Max" franchise, this time 'Max goes to Hollywood' in a big budget produced film, which was plagued due to the death of producer Byron Kennedy, killed in a helicopter crash, when he was scouting locations for the movie.
The early demise of their buddy, kind of depressed both director George Miller, that asked for his friend, George Ogilvie to co-direct the movie with him, and the star Mel Gibson, who started on booze during principal photography, even if the huge success of this film, was his passport to mainstream lead actor status in America, after a string of more 'artsy' oriented films such as "Mrs.Soffel", "The River" and "The Bounty" (all released in '84).
"Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", departed from the car chase action / revenge flicks from the previous entries, entering in the realms of the fantasy / adventure 'genres' on the footsteps of the new found success after "Raiders of the Lost Ark" ('81) and its sequel, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" ('84) and the "Conan" ('82 / '84) films.
The script once again penned by Miller himself, with the collaboration of Terry Hayes, pays homage to the Lost Boys from Peter Pan's story and the 1980 post-apocalyptic novel by Russell Hoban, "Riddley Walker", which sets the action a few years after the events of "The Road Warrior" ('81) in a more barbaric world, or at least more visually showed due it's larger budget, where our hero, 'Mad' Max Rockatansky is wandering through the Wasteland in a camel-drawn V8 wagon, after the destruction of his supercharger V8 - Interceptor in the previous entry. After he was robbed, Max goes to Bartertown, a community established in the middle of the desert, and makes a deal with the founder and ruler, the relentless Aunty Entity, to kill a man in the 'Thunderdome", an arena where the conflicts are resolved by a duel to the death according to Bartertown law, in exchange of her resupply his vehicle and equipment, but once again things will not go as Max expected...
"Max Max Beyond Thunderdome", works as a fantasy tale in an outlandish world and is more lighthearted in tone than its predecessors, Max have much more lines and his humanity increased, and the movie's appeal was aimed at a larger audience, being less crude, sadistic and violent, which infuriated some of the die hard "Mad Max" and "The Road Warrior" fans, but gained several other enthusiasts in the proccess.
It's true that the movie suffers from an uneven pace, especially in the 2nd Act where it becames too slow, when Max is approached by the lost tribe of kids as a somekind of 'religious' figure and the movie starts to drag on, but Miller compensates it, creating the fabulous final car chase, which is equally excellent as "The Road Warrior", very well staged and filmed, featuring daring stuntmen and peculiar & effective camera angles once again photographed by Dean Semler.
Talking about the cinematography, "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", presents beautiful composed shots of the Wasteland, in the vein of such desert classics as David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" ('62); Sergio Leone's "One Upon a Time in the West" ('68) and even Steven Spielberg's aforementioned, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" ('81), and in terms of photographed backgrounds and the use of scenarios, props, wardrobe, and the hundreds of extras that gave life to Bartertown, it's the most visually accomplished "Mad Max" film.
About the performances, Mel Gibson plays Max Rockatansky in a lighter tone, and even if he stills cynical and a kind of a laconic character, he's way more talkative here than in "The Road Warrior" and his witty & provocative humour in the dialogue delivering, created the 'Mel Gibson persona' on-screen that would be full explored in his future Martin Riggs' of the four "Lethal Weapon" ('87, '89, '92, '98) films; "Bird on a Wire" ('90); "Air America" ('90) or "Maverick" ('94), among lots of others.
Rock 'n' Roll Goddess, Tina Turner, in her screen debut, co-stars as Auntie Entity, in an outstanding, sharp and commanding performance as Max's nemesis, proving that she can act much better than several singers-turned-actors and she could have handled more film roles.
The supporting cast is full of vivid, eccentric and colorful characters as much as weird as the actors playing them, including the frontman of the Hard Rock Aussie band, Rose Tattoo, Mr. 'Angry' Anderson as Ironbar, Auntie Entity's henchman; the veteran character actor from "The Vikings" ('58) and "Ben-Hur" ('59), Frank Thring as The Collector; dwarf actor from the controversial cult classic film, Tod Browning's "Freaks" ('32), Angelo Rossitto as The Master; the returned Bruce Spence, this time not playing the Gyro Captain, but a similar character named Jedediah the Pilot; Helen Buday, as Savannah Nix, the leader of the tribe and a potential Max's love interest that was discarded from the film, and an eerie looking Edwin Hodgeman, playing Dr. Dealgood, the Thunderdome's Master of Ceremonies.
Fueled by a great orchestration by Maurice Jarre, replacing Brian May from the first two installments, and two catchy power pop / hard rock tunes sang by Tina Turner: "One of the Living", presented in the opening titles, and the Golden Globe nominee, "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" in the final credits, "Max Max Beyond Thunderdome" is a great piece of escapism that deserves to be ranked higher, especially nowadays after the release of the over-hyped, the CGI borefest and soulless flick, called "Mad Max - Fury Road", in which "Thunderdome" is clearly, and without question, the superior film.
Concluding, my only complaints about "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", besides the slower middle-part, is it lacks the novelty, the edgy, the spontaneity and the crudeness of the first two films, and the villains are less memorable (not counting Tina as a villain, she's more an anti-heroine, like Max himself), but i still give it a 9.5 / 10.
"Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", departed from the car chase action / revenge flicks from the previous entries, entering in the realms of the fantasy / adventure 'genres' on the footsteps of the new found success after "Raiders of the Lost Ark" ('81) and its sequel, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" ('84) and the "Conan" ('82 / '84) films.
The script once again penned by Miller himself, with the collaboration of Terry Hayes, pays homage to the Lost Boys from Peter Pan's story and the 1980 post-apocalyptic novel by Russell Hoban, "Riddley Walker", which sets the action a few years after the events of "The Road Warrior" ('81) in a more barbaric world, or at least more visually showed due it's larger budget, where our hero, 'Mad' Max Rockatansky is wandering through the Wasteland in a camel-drawn V8 wagon, after the destruction of his supercharger V8 - Interceptor in the previous entry. After he was robbed, Max goes to Bartertown, a community established in the middle of the desert, and makes a deal with the founder and ruler, the relentless Aunty Entity, to kill a man in the 'Thunderdome", an arena where the conflicts are resolved by a duel to the death according to Bartertown law, in exchange of her resupply his vehicle and equipment, but once again things will not go as Max expected...
"Max Max Beyond Thunderdome", works as a fantasy tale in an outlandish world and is more lighthearted in tone than its predecessors, Max have much more lines and his humanity increased, and the movie's appeal was aimed at a larger audience, being less crude, sadistic and violent, which infuriated some of the die hard "Mad Max" and "The Road Warrior" fans, but gained several other enthusiasts in the proccess.
It's true that the movie suffers from an uneven pace, especially in the 2nd Act where it becames too slow, when Max is approached by the lost tribe of kids as a somekind of 'religious' figure and the movie starts to drag on, but Miller compensates it, creating the fabulous final car chase, which is equally excellent as "The Road Warrior", very well staged and filmed, featuring daring stuntmen and peculiar & effective camera angles once again photographed by Dean Semler.
Talking about the cinematography, "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", presents beautiful composed shots of the Wasteland, in the vein of such desert classics as David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" ('62); Sergio Leone's "One Upon a Time in the West" ('68) and even Steven Spielberg's aforementioned, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" ('81), and in terms of photographed backgrounds and the use of scenarios, props, wardrobe, and the hundreds of extras that gave life to Bartertown, it's the most visually accomplished "Mad Max" film.
About the performances, Mel Gibson plays Max Rockatansky in a lighter tone, and even if he stills cynical and a kind of a laconic character, he's way more talkative here than in "The Road Warrior" and his witty & provocative humour in the dialogue delivering, created the 'Mel Gibson persona' on-screen that would be full explored in his future Martin Riggs' of the four "Lethal Weapon" ('87, '89, '92, '98) films; "Bird on a Wire" ('90); "Air America" ('90) or "Maverick" ('94), among lots of others.
Rock 'n' Roll Goddess, Tina Turner, in her screen debut, co-stars as Auntie Entity, in an outstanding, sharp and commanding performance as Max's nemesis, proving that she can act much better than several singers-turned-actors and she could have handled more film roles.
The supporting cast is full of vivid, eccentric and colorful characters as much as weird as the actors playing them, including the frontman of the Hard Rock Aussie band, Rose Tattoo, Mr. 'Angry' Anderson as Ironbar, Auntie Entity's henchman; the veteran character actor from "The Vikings" ('58) and "Ben-Hur" ('59), Frank Thring as The Collector; dwarf actor from the controversial cult classic film, Tod Browning's "Freaks" ('32), Angelo Rossitto as The Master; the returned Bruce Spence, this time not playing the Gyro Captain, but a similar character named Jedediah the Pilot; Helen Buday, as Savannah Nix, the leader of the tribe and a potential Max's love interest that was discarded from the film, and an eerie looking Edwin Hodgeman, playing Dr. Dealgood, the Thunderdome's Master of Ceremonies.
Fueled by a great orchestration by Maurice Jarre, replacing Brian May from the first two installments, and two catchy power pop / hard rock tunes sang by Tina Turner: "One of the Living", presented in the opening titles, and the Golden Globe nominee, "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" in the final credits, "Max Max Beyond Thunderdome" is a great piece of escapism that deserves to be ranked higher, especially nowadays after the release of the over-hyped, the CGI borefest and soulless flick, called "Mad Max - Fury Road", in which "Thunderdome" is clearly, and without question, the superior film.
Concluding, my only complaints about "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", besides the slower middle-part, is it lacks the novelty, the edgy, the spontaneity and the crudeness of the first two films, and the villains are less memorable (not counting Tina as a villain, she's more an anti-heroine, like Max himself), but i still give it a 9.5 / 10.