tek's rating: ½

Mad Max 2 (R)
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This came out in 1981, but I didn't see it until 2021. When the Australian movie was released in the U.S. in 1982, the title was changed to "The Road Warrior" to basically hide the fact that it was a sequel to a movie that at the time wasn't very popular here, I guess. Anyway, I didn't like this as much as I'd hoped I would. In fact I'm not sure I liked it any more than the first movie, but I'm rating it slightly higher just for the impact it had on later post-apocalyptic movies. Speaking of which, I said in my review of the first movie that it didn't seem quite post-apocalyptic yet. But this movie starts with some narration about a war that left the world in a post-apocalyptic state, which happened sometime prior to the first movie, apparently. So I guess I was wrong. But this movie seems a lot more genuinely post-apocalyptic, to me.

I'm not sure what to say about the plot, but I'll try. So, Max meets a guy with a flying machine, who's just called the Gyro Captain in the credits, but was never called anything in the movie. He shows Max an oil refinery that's heavily guarded inside a compound. There's also a gang that wants to get into the compound to steal the gas, and they kill scouts that the refinery people send out. Max saves one of the scouts and brings him back to the refinery compound, but the man dies shortly thereafter. Max makes a deal to bring back a Mack truck he'd seen earlier, to haul a tanker of gas for them, in exchange for all the gas he can carry in his car. Later, they want him to drive the rig for them, but he refuses. Which turns out not to be a very good idea, and he ends up driving the rig anyway, while the gang attacks from all sides. The leader of the gang is called Humungus. Also, among the people from the compound, there's a feral kid who's just called Feral Kid. He doesn't speak, but he's good with a boomerang. I don't want to say how it all ends, except that there's more narration, set in the future.

I don't think it's much of a plot, really, very basic stuff. But it's certainly action-packed.

Mad Max * The Road Warrior * Beyond Thunderdome * Fury Road


post-apocalyptic index