I have a feeling he's still pretty MAD. Want to vote on what I should watch next? Click here! www.patreon.com/jamesvscinema Re-watching Blade tomorrow! Enjoy the day!
If you’re re-watching Blade, then Blade II should be close behind…may I recommend a different Guillermo del Toro movie? Maybe try The Devil’s Backbone, Cronos, or Mimic.
Yea the Mad Max universe is addictive. In your previous review of the first movie I mentioned the Wasteland Weekend group. I went to that and it was like living in the Mad Max world because they enforced the rule of dressing up in that style while in the area. Edit; and yes we have one guy who dresses up like the Humongous along with the later movie bad guy.
Thanks James! If you want to go down the Ozploitation (thanks a bloody lot, Tarrentino) rabbit hole, I can recommend ‘Razorback’ for the weirdest Jaws-like movie you will probably ever see, as well as “Wake in Fright” or “The Last Wave”. Landscape is a huge feature, or at least was, in Australian cinema. Comes from living here, the oldest and flattest continent on Earth.
James....now that you have Finished The Road Warrior,now you Definitely Must end The Series With Mad Max: Beyond The Thunderdome. It is kind of like Army Of Darkness where The Tone changes to a more light-hearted Adventure side and goes a little bit down on The Brutality side of The first 2 movies and it arguably has Max biggest development with him regaining some of The father instincts he lost after The death of his baby......and The reason for that is from what i remember,Miller Stated that he was Making The movie in homenage to The producer of The first 2 movies Who passed away in a helicopter crash and that is The reason for it to The be The most lighthearted out of The franchise, as a way to move over from The shock and grief of all that....The movie ends with a message saying it was made for him. So i revommend it out to see both a different side of Max and to finish The franchise and as a homenage to The producer of The two first movies.
"How many dogs are they gonna kill in this?" If it makes you feel better (and it should), the dog in Mad Max 2 was found at a local pound, scheduled to be put down. He was rescued, trained up for filming, and then retired to a life of luxury with one of the film's stuntmen (after a brief stint on a ranch owned by the stunt coordinator).
Cult Classic? Hidden gem? No! This movie is a legend. Primarily because a little Australian production company did a car chase scene that made all Hollywood car chases look pathetic in comparison.
Don't know about that being the best ever. One of the best. The French Connection car chase and most certainly Bullit car chase are just as good. There are others.
Yep, one of the best things about 80s & 90s is that "green screen" was either so primitive as to be laughable, or, if you wanted the good stuff, it was so expensive if the film bombed it could take the studio with it, so practical effects were the name of the game. And films were better off for it.
@@0PsychosisMedia0 yeah but nowhere close in theatricality and such precise control of so much chaos, yet still viscerally and unpredictably epic. This isn't just a chase scene. It's literally a battle between two tribes on a road. They're not cars, they're weapons of war.
@@0PsychosisMedia0 absolutely! Definitely not taking away from other chase scenes, they just all have their own flavour that make each one stand from the rest.
This is the Mad Max movie to most audiences from back in the day. 99% of American audiences hadn't seen the first movie when they watched this. When this movie came out, it really did revolutionize the film industry. It set a new bar for practical effects and action movies in general. This is also that the movie that made Mel Gibson a star, he was always in demand after this.
@@frijolero6048 Yupp, I still have my dad's old VHS of this that I grew up watching since I was like 3. It says THE ROAD WARRIOR. Had no idea there was a 'Mad Max' until years later
Yeah. The whole reason these movies were crewed and shot in Australia is because USA production companies wouldn't make them because they were considered too violent.
In Fury Road they basically just took the final car chase/fight scene of this movie and said, "we could make a whole movie with just that stuff!" It's epic.
That's exactly what his character is about. The four Mad Max films are about the myth of Max, which also allows for minor/major inconsistencies in the series. Really great storytelling.
He's a folk hero. That's why his car can get destroyed and then be back in another movie. He can be injured and be just fine by the next movie. He's the audience's eyes and ears for the whole thing. That is what makes me love the mythology so much
That's why we should have a Max Max movie every few years with no real continuty between them, so the audience has fun trying to figure out where in Max's long story they take place.
Looking forward to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The film gets a lot of crap, but it's a banger and we all know it. There isn't a single bad Mad Max film.
Nobody seems to recall the second act. I'll be honest I'm not really sure what happened. Tribe people wearing radios or something? But Master Blaster is iconic.
RIP to the last of the Interceptors, an iconic cinematic car. The revival of the Interceptor in Fury Road is why I believe they're all just legends about Max. His car is just another character who shows up here and there in the stories, like the gyro captain.
This came out theatrically in the summer of 82 here in the states, best movie summer ever. ET, Poltergeist, Conan the Barbarian, Tron, Star Trek II, Rocky III , Fast Times, Blade Runner and especially The Thing. It was a great time to be 14.
I was EIGHT years old in 1982. The EARLY 80's was the greatest time to be a kid seeing movies, in history. There were *so* many incredible fantasy and science fiction films of *HIGH* quality, it was just overwhelming.
I like how George Miller made everyone of these films in a way where you don't have to see the previous ones to know what is going on. He also has Max speak as little as possible.
Agreed. He also did a fantastic job of making each one feel like its own movie. Even though they're all in the same genre, they have starkly different tones and pacings.
My mother did NOT want me seeing this movie, I was 9 when it came out. I had a friend who's dad was a car junkie. Saw the movie with them. The grounding was worth it. This movie fueled my imagination for YEARS. Matchbox Car battles galore. Thunderdome will always be my favorite. But I love this movie as much now as I did when I first saw it! Also - the continuity is amazing. Max retains the affects of the wounds he receives in this movie into the next.
Heh, reminds me when I was a kid, they showed this movie on main TV channel, and they even issued a warning beforehand, of distressing violence :D I was allowed to watch it, but only barely - and there was a heated TV-debate afterwards, about violence on TV - this was earliest 90s, so - people are sensitive in all epochs of time!
I was about 11, and to answer james question about whether people saw yhis mivie as a classic, yeah, instant classic, at least among the tween set! Hell, I even remember spoof commercials from gas companies ("The Road Worrier" "whatsamatter, Road?" "Im worried") Much as I love Fury Road, this to me is the undisputed king, with fury road as a close 2nd. Maybe its nostalgia, but this movie makes me feel like I can smell deisel and sweat, and smoke in the desert.
I know what you mean about The Road Warrior capturing your imagination. I saw it like four times in theaters the summer it came out. Incredible actions scenes, vehicles, weapons, costumes, heroes and villains. That final shot of Max, standing a bit sideways, fading into darkness and into the distance, is so iconic.
This is THE Mad Max movie to me. The first one was entertaining and different from most other movies from that time but this one has the real Mad Max wasteland world and the Mad Max character has hit the apex (see what I did there?). As for finding beauty in this wasteland, yes. Living in a wasteland? No. I'd enjoy taking a big 4x4 loaded with food, water and other essentials and go out there and explore (and drive like a Mad Max) for a few days only to return to my comfy apartment and hit the couch to watch a movie. And yes, if the world turned into a wasteland, the women would unfortunately become prey to males who've reverted to their most primitive instincts due to the environment and their survival instincts. It will vary between individuals but those instincts are still buried down there in our deepest part of our brains. :/
I love that after the first film, Max may be the central character, but they are not *his* stories per se. He becomes more and more like a vehicle to wrap some else's story around, like a traditional folk hero or recurring character in a tall tale.
Couple of fun facts: the movie was shot in sequence to ensure they had all their footage before destroying the compound set and tanker truck. 21:04 Yes the grass is there the whole time (in the background around 9:56), but I think this is the only shot where it's up close. There was an abnormal amount of rain during filming which may have made the grass more vibrant here than earlier. 22:30 This was a real accident. The stunt man's legs clipped the car instead of flying cleanly over it, sending him spinning out of control. He survived with only a broken leg. The look of Guts from Berzerk was indeed influenced by Max from Road Warrior, with author Kentaro Miura also likening them as "a dark hero burning for revenge; rabid and guided by anger".
The first Mad Max was a cult hit, made on a shoestring, and so was, at that time, the most profitable film ever made. Road Warrior was a bona fide international hit. The budget was much larger, so the ratio of budget to box office was different, but it made a lot of money, and turned Mel Gibson into a bankable star.
Until 'Fury Road' this was widely viewed as the best action film ever made. It's Clint Eastwood's 'man with no name' mashed up into the apocalypse. 'He lives now only in my memory' is up there with the 'tears in rain' speech from 'Blade Runner'. The narration from the beginning be so indistinct and using generic footage is because the narrator didn't experience those events personally. The narrator is very old, and may not be a 'reliable narrator', this is the moment when events are becoming myth. It just so thoughtful and clever. A brutal sci fi classic.
When I was in college my roommate would get drunk sometimes and he would take his shirt off, stand on his bed and do the whole Lord Humungous speech. It was funny as hell.
Fallout 1&2 draw enormous amounts of inspiration from Mad Max (as did wasteland before then) and Interplay never tried to hide it, from the one armed leather jackets and sawed off shotgun models, to the Chryslus Motors Highwayman having a blower like Max's Ford Falcon XB GT coupe, to Dogmeat being implied to be one of Max's dog there are little pop culture references throughout "classic" fallout. (Also, Star Trek, Monty Python, the Terminator, and tons more as well), if you can live with the dated top down graphics fallout 1 & 2 are well worth your time.
Fallout basically just took little bits of every post-apocalyptic movies and books ever made, from famous obvious ones like this to the really obscure, and just threw them all together in a great big stew. That's why I can't take seriously people who cry about changes to canon between the games. They're missing the whole point.
When I worked in food retail I used to serve Bruce Spence (helicopter pilot) all the time, super nice guy, appreciated that a young guy knew who he was.
Allegedly the main villain "Humongous" was originally supposed to be Max's friend Jim Goose from the first film. They decided against it but you can see hints of the idea in his burn-scarred appearance and personal items connected to law enforcement.
Nice! We had the same thought. Yeah, there's still a bunch of clues left over from previous drafts. Like how a lot of his gang seem to be ex-Cops from the original Mad Max. In the same way, Immortan Joe from Fury Road could kind of be interpreted to be Toecutter from the original Mad Max. He has a facial injury much like you'd get if you smashed face first into semi truck.
Interesting. I always thought that Humongous' burns/etc. were from radiation from the apocalyptic war discussed at the beginning. BTW, the actor that played Immortan Joe in Fury Road is the *same* actor that played Toecutter. The characters aren't linked, but it is the same actor.
One of the greatest action films ever! I love saying, "I'll drive that tanker." My Australian accent is crap, but my friends know what I mean. Love it.
@@EssEll9791 I have a friend and for legitimately 20 years any time we see one another we greet each other with ‘right?!’ ‘WRONG!’ From Commando. Absolutely no idea why those lines haha
The original orchestrated score for this film is just pure awesomeness! This film has one of the coolest intros of all time, and the final chase is so iconic.
This isn’t a hidden gem, as it was a success at the time, though I’m guessing a lot of younger folks haven’t seen it. 1982, when this came out, was one of the best years of film. That, and 1999. Both years are full of highly influential bangers
These were HUUUGE in the 80's!!.. as a kid then I and my friends soaked them up big time then. And tried re-creating them on our BMX bikes all the time. How we all lived to adulthood is beyond me.
That fade out and 'He lives only in my memories....' DEFINES EPIC. This is the movie that made Mel Gibson a star. This actually got a US release where the first one didn't. We didn't know it was actually a sequel until cable tv came out in the 80's.
Love this film. I see Mad Max less as an action series and more like a tragedy of man. All these people at one time or another in this world may have just been everyday people. Working at a supermarket or a bank, or just every day people who lost it all and survival is all that is left, both sides. It all sums up for me in the speech Humangus gives where he says the line "I understand your pain. We all lost someone we loved." All these poor souls are broken.
When this was brand-new, my friends and I saw it in a double bill with another post-apocalyptic S.F. movie, 175's "A Boy and His Dog". One of the best double-features you could imagine! And we saw it on one of Montreal's largest movie screens, in the Cinema V repertory theater. Is till consider "The Road Warrior" to be the best "Mad Max" flick, by far.
At the time it came out, this and Raiders of the Lost Ark were the two most action movies made up to date. I loved it when I first watched it on home video in 1982 and still love it today. I think Fury Road is excellent at recreating a lot of the excitement I felt watching this, but there's only one Road Warrior and I'll always a place in my heart for it. Here's a bit of trivia: Lord Humungous was originally supposed to be Goose, Max's biker cop friend who gets burned, from the original Mad Max. He isn't, that was changed in later drafts, but there are still clues: He's horribly burned (notice he has no ears), he wears a neckbrace because his neck is broken, and much of his gang is comprised of ex-MFP Police Officers.
Interesting that you wondered who 'Mohawk Guy' was before 'the fall'. I remember reading somewhere years ago that when they were writing the story that every single character,(good guys, bad guys, everybody) got a back story. Would probably make for some interesting reading if you could find those notes.
I saw Mad Max when I was in junior high. I think they must have re-run it in theaters before Road Warrior came out. It was a long time ago :P Anyway.. As a GenX-er I think it came out at a pivotal time. Older generations were told that nuclear war would destroy everything. I mean yeah, duck and cover, but the impression was that everything would end. GenX was brought up with science talking about nuclear winter and that some people would survive and, more important here, about what it would be like. Mad Max was when international society was gone, like the fringes of the world survived but were cut off. Road Warrior was in the badlands left over with radiation and anarchy. At that specific time, around Star Wars (Reagan edition) and Land of Confusion on MTV, you were pondering whether you wanted to survive a nuclear war or not. This wasn't a secret cult classic. I think it spoke to a generation in a lot of ways. There may be a lot of people who don't know about it (I think I ran the risk of the VHS breaking 😊) but there are a lot of people that probably haven't watched Aliens (another awesome sequel that's aged a bit). Road Warrior is definitely my favorite from the series. Each has it's merits and in each, Max evolves on the edge of anarchy, and overrunning the corners into madness and back again. In Mad Max he lost everything and became what he originally fought. In Road Warrior he was deciding whether it was worth caring about anything anymore. Pretty apt for GenX at the time.
As a Gen X-er myself, I second that! We grew up with the possability of the world ending in a few hours, at any time: current generations grew up with "Let's smoke a bowl.". Sadly, current generations missed out on a helluva time, when only your lack of an imagination could hold you back. Just wait until you watch Beyond Thunderdome, and some of the films that copy this genre. (Cherry 2000, Miracle Mile, Tank Girl, etc.)
Bit of trivia for Farscape fans. I didn't realize for decades but the same actress that played the Warrior Woman also played Zhaan on Farscape and the old plant lady in Furiosa was Granny on Farscape. The guy that did the voice of Rygel also had a small part in Mad Max I.
I was working my first job at a Boy Scout summer camp when THE ROAD WARRIOR came out. A group of us went to town on our Saturday night off and saw this at the local theater. For the duration of the movie, we were no longer Boy Scouts... we were barbarians cheering big screen carnage. It was one the best movie-going experiences of my life at the time and I still love this movie.
YES!! This film is incredible! The first one left a bit to be desired for me, and this film improved on every aspect of the first for me. It’s such a great, special film
yeah man 2 was the peak for me 3 I like I really do but it's almost like they pushed it too far from what it was. I was glad to see fury road return to form.
The 3rd is decent, but I always felt like, because of Max's popularity, they felt the need to tone down and be more family freindly. Still good, but doesn't hold a candle to the 2nd.
@@rrmenton8016 Max punches a teenage girl out after shooting a gun at a village full of children, a mentally disabled man is used as a thug/gladiator and is then killed for the whole town to see, a little person is dunked in pig excrement, and the dying gesture of Tina Turner's main henchman is to flip the bird to the audience as he's crushed beneath a pile of twisted metal. F'ing A it's more family friendly , wouldn't have it any other way 🤣
I've watched a ton of movie reviews on youtube. This is probably my all time favorite. Watching your reactions brought me back to when I first watched it when I was a kid. Thank you for actually paying attention and catching the little things about the store, lore, and atmosphere.
This is from a time when there were limitations to what special effects could and could not do. This is from a time where story and writing was important. Audiences could overlook bad effects if you had a good story to tell. Mad Max is kind of a redemption story.
I grew up near where they shot, we used to get held up by filming and it was fascinating looking at how dodgy some of the set dressings looked in real life compared to how they looked in the actual movie. Mel Gibson trained the dog to follow him around by having it tied to his leg while he walked around the local reserve army grounds where they were set up.
The Stunt man who hits the vehicle then somersaults through the air three times before hitting the pavement got seriously injured. The stunt went wrong, and he broke his pelvis. I think he was hospitalized three months before he could start to walk again. And, they went ahead and used the footage because of how awesome it looked!
I always wonder how a stuntman would feel about that, if it was me, and I ended up in the hospital, Id be ticked if they DIDN'T use the footage, but maybe thats just the romantic in me.
What blows my mind is that in the films credits only 5 stuntmen were used. With all the stunts here, only 5 stuntmen is insane. A Hollywood movie would have had dozens and dozens required stuntmen
I was 14 when this came out. A lot of people didint see it . But the ones that did new this was it. It has is has effected the way we see the apocalypse since it was made. Not jest in film but in all of fiction and story telling over all.
Nice James. So quickly after Mad Max too. A great sequel. In many ways, a more highly focused version of the first movie, favouring all the interesting film techniques used therein. An original classic really.
Mad Max and Road Warrior by George Miller; Heat by Michael Mann; The Evil Dead and ED2 by Sam Raimi are foundational examples of why it is sometimes important to re visit old ideas to execute them with new knowledge, skills, and access to resources. All three of those were ideas redone because the initial execution didn't match up to the premise but the success allowed these directors to being out the true potential of there ideas.
I’ve never seen LA Takedown, the original version of Heat. I wonder if it has the Mann magic. His first theatrical film Thief sure does, it’s as reflective of later work as it gets, a brilliant debut/statement of aesthetic purpose.
@@ronbock8291 its definitely missing his Mann magic but even Mann agrees. It is almost an exact clone in terms of script/story to Heat. He just knew he didn't do it justice so he re did it with Heat and boy did we get a masterpiece.
I can't tell you how happy I am that you watched the second movie right away. I can't wait to see your reaction to the third one. Again, a lot of people call it the weakest of the three, but I think it's the most quotable. It has some incredible characters and dialogue, great humor, and really builds on the ideas started in The Road Warrior of this whole story becoming a mythic tale. I think the reason Fury Road was so good is because it built on all of the ideas from the first three movies and perfected it.
This film was my introduction to the franchise and my favorite of the four. It was after viewing this movie that I went back to see the original Mad Max (1). I loved the vehicles, especially the gyrocopter. As a kid, one of my neighbors had a gyrocopter that he flew over the area farms. I loved the post-apocalyptic aesthetic and the indie-film style. I found Mad Max (3): Beyond Thunderdome to be too commercial for my taste.
Perfect timing! I was watching the Australian show called "Housos" and the newest episode recreated the camp/base area from this movie! School bus and giant tires and all.
I saw this movie in 1985 when I was 6 years old. My family was driving cross country from the east coast to the west coast and we had stopped in Little Rock, Arkansas to stay at a motel. This movie came on TV that night and I remember watching it on the motel room TV. My mom and dad were never ones to tell me I couldn't watch a movie. I remember renting Meatballs II when I was around 8 or 9 years old from a local video store and seeing movies like The Howling and Hellraiser around the same time. There's a good documentary that came out in 2008 called "Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild Untold Story of Ozploitation" which goes through some of the Australian movies made in the 70s and 80s that were low budget horror, action, and comedy films. The first two Mad Max films are considered by some to be part of that Ozploitation genre.
A friend from work told me about this great movie on HBO called Mad Max The Road Warrior and I thought what a cheesy title. I finally watched it and was blown away.That was over 40 years ago and I have been an action movie fan ever since. I'm always impressed with your choices. In fact the first movie I watched on your channel was Apocalypto - directed by Mel Gibson! Great channel James.
Mad Max is amazing. I watched these as a kid, even though I definitely shouldn't have. There are currently 4 movies. And one video game, if you're interested. It's open world with a lot of car driving/building, hand to hand combat, and desolate landscapes.
3 great actors in this that went on to do some great stuff: Bruce Spence as the gyro captain (does a lot of character acting, was the creepy guy telling Obi-Wan they were being held hostage in Ep.3) Virginia Hey as one of the warriors (later went on to play Zhaan in Farscape) Michael Preston as the leader of the refinery camp (was later in Airwolf and Highlander: The Series) :D
And the editing. Dang the editing is so tight. This is a masterclass in making an action movie. It’s always a joy to see someone discover this movie for the first time. Thanks man
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This is one of the best action movies ever! I remember when I was 'bout 9 years old and saw this... Mind blowing! :)
George Miller basically invented the vision of a post apocalyptic warrior hellscape that dominated a generation of filmmakers. Say "Mad Max Post Apocalpytic Hellscape" and everyone has an image of what you're talking about, weird souped up hotrods with mounted guns and crossbows, makeshift armor made piecemeal out of hockey gear, Mohawks etc. People have that vision even if they never saw this film because it's so influential it's seeped through into popular culture and general consciousness (see the Rick and Morty episode where they spend time in such an environment). This is similar to Bladerunner inventing a whole vision of a grimy futuristic urban dystopia that got ripped off by a million films since.
This has been one of my favorite movies as far back as I can remember. I had a VHS tape recorded off of HBO of this movie as a kid and watched it all the time. I've always called it the ultimate guy movie and I still stand by those words. I loved Fury Road but I still think The Road Warrior is the better, more complete movie.
As kids, this movie was forever in the rotation of movies. We had such fun movies growing up and this was one of our favorite films. Top tier 80's movie.
The scene where the motorcycle is chasing the tanker and it hits that wrecked car and you see the motorcycle rider do cartwheels through the air, that was an actual on-set accident during filming of the chase. The stuntman got wrecked too, as I recall he broke his collarbone and several other things. The cameras caught the whole thing and George Miller loved the shot so much that he kept it in the movie, even though it was not a stunt. I hope that stuntman got a crap-ton of money for that.
You should check out this movie from 1959 called On the Beach. It takes place mostly in Australia after WWIII. It's about an American nuclear submarine that goes to Australia after the war. As far as anyone knows the entire Northern Hemisphere is irradiated and it is impossible to live there. But then they start getting a radio signal from Seattle. It's in Morris code but it is nonsense, as if the radio operator doesn't know Morris Code and is just hitting the key randomly. It can sort of be a prequel to Mad Max.
I've found the storytelling in the Mad Max Road Warrior, Beyond Thunderdome, and Fury Road is thematically similar to American Westerns. A hero emerges from the desert/wasteland and appears before a people/town in its time of need, encounters terrible hardships but ultimately saves the day before returning to the obscurity from whence he came. He's more folklore hero than an actual person in those films. He's central to the story he appears in but the story isn't necessarily about him outside of his struggles with his own morality at points and struggling against the film's antagonists. In Road Warrior the story he appears in is really the people of that small gas town; and it's told by the boy who worshipped him as a hero. In Thunderdome it's both the story of the people of Thunderdome and the children of the wasteland oasis awaiting their savior and the oppression of Barter-Town. In Fury Road the story is Furiosa's and Immortan Joe's wives and Max arrives to battle to save them. But in the end he always returns to wandering the wasteland regardless of what he's accomplished.
When this came out we were young teens and we WORSHIPPED this movie. We had it on VHS and replayed the action scenes a million times, slow mo etc. hehehe
That isn't a can of beans, man, that is canned Dog food. I still absolutely love that shot of the stunt guy cartwheeling through the air after hitting the car wreck on his bike, that was a real stunt and that guy did not walk away, he was carried.
I saw this in a theater with about 7 other moviegoers, and I was blown away. It puts me in mind of classic mythology, where the hero goes on to the next adventure. "With the defeat of the Humongous and his band of raiders, and the loss of their home, the Refinery people moved onward to a new home, uniting with other survivors and refugees, eventually becoming the Great Northern Tribe. Max would continue his journey in the wasteland, seeking his future... but that is another story."
When I was younger was watching the movie for the 4th time in a theater with a first-timer. He had a huge leg cast and had it propped up on the seat back in front of him. When the chase scene goes silent as the boy tries to get the shotgun shells, I knew what was coming. Watching my friend's leg raise in the air with that jolt moment was hilarious. I guess that was my first time watching a "reaction" to a movie I had already seen. :)
Mel Gibson was born in New York, but his family moved to Australia in the late 60's. after college in New South Wales he starred in a few TV shows and on stage. Mad Max was his big break that catapulted him to an international star.
I have a feeling that George Miller had a Fury Road style epic in his mind, when he made this, but the technology simply wasn't there yet, for that. And he did a wonderful job with what he had, when his means limited his creative vision, and he did a wonderful job when he had all the means to do exactly what he imagined.
Watched this as a little kid, at a Drive in from the back of our V8 Sandman Ute, double feature with Excalibur for whatever reason...one of the best nights of my childhood! Hahaha!
This is just one of dozens of movies my dad showed me at all too young a age and I’m thankful he did every day. If he hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t be the cinephile I am now.
I stopped keeping track somewhere around 14 or so views, but somehow this movie is the one I've watched more than any other in my life. Funny the things an 11 year old is willing to do. I wanted nothing more than to have a dog like the one Max had.
Here in Australia I went to to the movies and saw this when it first started showing and I loved the movie so much after I walked out of the cinema I bought another ticket and watch it again the next session
Grew up watching this about once a month, for at least a few years, as a kid on a pirated VCR copy. Loved it. Great to see accents I recognised in a movie. Kennedy/Miller made a lot of great TV movies through the 1970s and 80s. The movie series is more hilarious if you’re a local and recognise who the cast have been in other productions. I think they recruited ‘the Humungous’ from going to a local Sydney gym and asking around for the biggest bloke there.
When this came out, it was just The Road Warrior. I saw it first (as did every friend I had), then found Mad Max on VHS at a flea market about 2 yrs later. Mad Max set records on the low budget/high box-office returns, but The Road Warrior is THE quintessential Mad Max movie.
I have a feeling he's still pretty MAD.
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Re-watching Blade tomorrow! Enjoy the day!
If you’re re-watching Blade, then Blade II should be close behind…may I recommend a different Guillermo del Toro movie? Maybe try The Devil’s Backbone, Cronos, or Mimic.
Yea the Mad Max universe is addictive. In your previous review of the first movie I mentioned the Wasteland Weekend group. I went to that and it was like living in the Mad Max world because they enforced the rule of dressing up in that style while in the area. Edit; and yes we have one guy who dresses up like the Humongous along with the later movie bad guy.
Thanks James! If you want to go down the Ozploitation (thanks a bloody lot, Tarrentino) rabbit hole, I can recommend ‘Razorback’ for the weirdest Jaws-like movie you will probably ever see, as well as “Wake in Fright” or “The Last Wave”. Landscape is a huge feature, or at least was, in Australian cinema. Comes from living here, the oldest and flattest continent on Earth.
React to WATCHMEN (2009). watch the ultimate cut
James....now that you have Finished The Road Warrior,now you Definitely Must end The Series With Mad Max: Beyond The Thunderdome.
It is kind of like Army Of Darkness where The Tone changes to a more light-hearted Adventure side and goes a little bit down on The Brutality side of The first 2 movies and it arguably has Max biggest development with him regaining some of The father instincts he lost after The death of his baby......and The reason for that is from what i remember,Miller Stated that he was Making The movie in homenage to The producer of The first 2 movies Who passed away in a helicopter crash and that is The reason for it to The be The most lighthearted out of The franchise, as a way to move over from The shock and grief of all that....The movie ends with a message saying it was made for him.
So i revommend it out to see both a different side of Max and to finish The franchise and as a homenage to The producer of The two first movies.
"How many dogs are they gonna kill in this?"
If it makes you feel better (and it should), the dog in Mad Max 2 was found at a local pound, scheduled to be put down. He was rescued, trained up for filming, and then retired to a life of luxury with one of the film's stuntmen (after a brief stint on a ranch owned by the stunt coordinator).
Cult Classic? Hidden gem? No! This movie is a legend. Primarily because a little Australian production company did a car chase scene that made all Hollywood car chases look pathetic in comparison.
Don't know about that being the best ever. One of the best. The French Connection car chase and most certainly Bullit car chase are just as good. There are others.
Yep, one of the best things about 80s & 90s is that "green screen" was either so primitive as to be laughable, or, if you wanted the good stuff, it was so expensive if the film bombed it could take the studio with it, so practical effects were the name of the game. And films were better off for it.
@@0PsychosisMedia0 yeah but nowhere close in theatricality and such precise control of so much chaos, yet still viscerally and unpredictably epic. This isn't just a chase scene. It's literally a battle between two tribes on a road. They're not cars, they're weapons of war.
@@JustinMcVicar cant argue with the chaos statement! It was impressive for the time and budget.
@@0PsychosisMedia0 absolutely! Definitely not taking away from other chase scenes, they just all have their own flavour that make each one stand from the rest.
This is the Mad Max movie to most audiences from back in the day. 99% of American audiences hadn't seen the first movie when they watched this. When this movie came out, it really did revolutionize the film industry. It set a new bar for practical effects and action movies in general. This is also that the movie that made Mel Gibson a star, he was always in demand after this.
I remember that. We all watched Mad Max AFTER Road Warrior.
@@frijolero6048 Yupp, I still have my dad's old VHS of this that I grew up watching since I was like 3. It says THE ROAD WARRIOR. Had no idea there was a 'Mad Max' until years later
Yeah. The whole reason these movies were crewed and shot in Australia is because USA production companies wouldn't make them because they were considered too violent.
In Fury Road they basically just took the final car chase/fight scene of this movie and said, "we could make a whole movie with just that stuff!" It's epic.
I say that all the time about the first Saw movie they took the end of the first Mad Max and made a boring movie.
I love The Road Warrior but I do think Fury Road is the best action movie ever.
The guy that plays Immortan Joe in Fury Road was the same actor that played the bad guy in the first movie too.
@@peterwale6821 he's also the black market medical services and body parts dealer Grunshlik in Farscape.
@@bladestormviking didn't know that tbh but I read earlier that he's coming back for the Furiosa prequel
I love that Max is this kind of mythological figure you’d tell stories of around the campfire or something.
That's exactly what his character is about. The four Mad Max films are about the myth of Max, which also allows for minor/major inconsistencies in the series. Really great storytelling.
He's a folk hero. That's why his car can get destroyed and then be back in another movie. He can be injured and be just fine by the next movie. He's the audience's eyes and ears for the whole thing. That is what makes me love the mythology so much
That's why we should have a Max Max movie every few years with no real continuty between them, so the audience has fun trying to figure out where in Max's long story they take place.
"Maybe half of it happened, but not like this."
the video game was reaaaallllyy good too. a lot of people missed out on it.
Looking forward to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The film gets a lot of crap, but it's a banger and we all know it. There isn't a single bad Mad Max film.
Nobody seems to recall the second act. I'll be honest I'm not really sure what happened. Tribe people wearing radios or something? But Master Blaster is iconic.
If you're not willing to forgive how goofy Thunderdome can be, it can be hard to sit through.
I grew up watching it over and over again as a kid, and loving it, so I think I might be biased, but yeah, I still love it.
Who runs Barter-town?
Should have stayed rated R like the first 2 films. Other than that I liked it.
RIP to the last of the Interceptors, an iconic cinematic car. The revival of the Interceptor in Fury Road is why I believe they're all just legends about Max. His car is just another character who shows up here and there in the stories, like the gyro captain.
RIP the Aussie Falcon XA with the fake supercharger switch lol
Even as a Holden man, I grieved our best competition.
Falcons were pretty in the 70's
This came out theatrically in the summer of 82 here in the states, best movie summer ever. ET, Poltergeist, Conan the Barbarian, Tron, Star Trek II, Rocky III , Fast Times, Blade Runner and especially The Thing. It was a great time to be 14.
We were so spoiled. We just assumed that movies should always be amazing.
I was EIGHT years old in 1982. The EARLY 80's was the greatest time to be a kid seeing movies, in history. There were *so* many incredible fantasy and science fiction films of *HIGH* quality, it was just overwhelming.
Wasn't around back then but those movies still hold up!
I like how George Miller made everyone of these films in a way where you don't have to see the previous ones to know what is going on. He also has Max speak as little as possible.
Agreed. He also did a fantastic job of making each one feel like its own movie. Even though they're all in the same genre, they have starkly different tones and pacings.
It's like hints of sanity you see in each movie.
My mother did NOT want me seeing this movie, I was 9 when it came out. I had a friend who's dad was a car junkie. Saw the movie with them. The grounding was worth it. This movie fueled my imagination for YEARS. Matchbox Car battles galore. Thunderdome will always be my favorite. But I love this movie as much now as I did when I first saw it!
Also - the continuity is amazing. Max retains the affects of the wounds he receives in this movie into the next.
Hahaha so one else watched this at the exact same age somewhere in the comments.
@@JamesVSCinema I was 9 when it came out, but didnt see it until I was 10 :D
Heh, reminds me when I was a kid, they showed this movie on main TV channel, and they even issued a warning beforehand, of distressing violence :D I was allowed to watch it, but only barely - and there was a heated TV-debate afterwards, about violence on TV - this was earliest 90s, so - people are sensitive in all epochs of time!
I was about 11, and to answer james question about whether people saw yhis mivie as a classic, yeah, instant classic, at least among the tween set! Hell, I even remember spoof commercials from gas companies ("The Road Worrier" "whatsamatter, Road?" "Im worried")
Much as I love Fury Road, this to me is the undisputed king, with fury road as a close 2nd. Maybe its nostalgia, but this movie makes me feel like I can smell deisel and sweat, and smoke in the desert.
I know what you mean about The Road Warrior capturing your imagination. I saw it like four times in theaters the summer it came out. Incredible actions scenes, vehicles, weapons, costumes, heroes and villains. That final shot of Max, standing a bit sideways, fading into darkness and into the distance, is so iconic.
This is THE Mad Max movie to me. The first one was entertaining and different from most other movies from that time but this one has the real Mad Max wasteland world and the Mad Max character has hit the apex (see what I did there?).
As for finding beauty in this wasteland, yes. Living in a wasteland? No. I'd enjoy taking a big 4x4 loaded with food, water and other essentials and go out there and explore (and drive like a Mad Max) for a few days only to return to my comfy apartment and hit the couch to watch a movie. And yes, if the world turned into a wasteland, the women would unfortunately become prey to males who've reverted to their most primitive instincts due to the environment and their survival instincts. It will vary between individuals but those instincts are still buried down there in our deepest part of our brains. :/
Super dope film!
"
This is THE Mad Max movie to me. "
SAME
The Mad Max franchise is probably my favourite film franchise, and as much as this film is a masterpiece, personally, the first one is still the best.
Fury Road is a great movie but Road Warrior is a perfect movie.
@@matthewdavidjarvis6039 you mean Furiosa Goes to the Desert?
I love that after the first film, Max may be the central character, but they are not *his* stories per se. He becomes more and more like a vehicle to wrap some else's story around, like a traditional folk hero or recurring character in a tall tale.
Best of the series imo. Saw this when I was 9 in 82 still holds a place in my favorite films.
That’s an awesome age to see this LMFAO. Feel like it’s a cult classic
yes definitely a classic
Couple of fun facts: the movie was shot in sequence to ensure they had all their footage before destroying the compound set and tanker truck.
21:04 Yes the grass is there the whole time (in the background around 9:56), but I think this is the only shot where it's up close. There was an abnormal amount of rain during filming which may have made the grass more vibrant here than earlier.
22:30 This was a real accident. The stunt man's legs clipped the car instead of flying cleanly over it, sending him spinning out of control. He survived with only a broken leg.
The look of Guts from Berzerk was indeed influenced by Max from Road Warrior, with author Kentaro Miura also likening them as "a dark hero burning for revenge; rabid and guided by anger".
fist of the north star I would say was more influenced by mad max as far as character design and world goes
This is my absolute favorite mad max film, even including the recent one. That plot twist at the end is amazing.
The first Mad Max was a cult hit, made on a shoestring, and so was, at that time, the most profitable film ever made. Road Warrior was a bona fide international hit. The budget was much larger, so the ratio of budget to box office was different, but it made a lot of money, and turned Mel Gibson into a bankable star.
Until 'Fury Road' this was widely viewed as the best action film ever made. It's Clint Eastwood's 'man with no name' mashed up into the apocalypse. 'He lives now only in my memory' is up there with the 'tears in rain' speech from 'Blade Runner'. The narration from the beginning be so indistinct and using generic footage is because the narrator didn't experience those events personally. The narrator is very old, and may not be a 'reliable narrator', this is the moment when events are becoming myth. It just so thoughtful and clever. A brutal sci fi classic.
When I was in college my roommate would get drunk sometimes and he would take his shirt off, stand on his bed and do the whole Lord Humungous speech. It was funny as hell.
This movie is iconic, it's like a mission in Fallout.
I think I either say that here or in another film hahaha
No my man, a mission in Fallout is like Mad Max.
Fallout 1&2 draw enormous amounts of inspiration from Mad Max (as did wasteland before then) and Interplay never tried to hide it, from the one armed leather jackets and sawed off shotgun models, to the Chryslus Motors Highwayman having a blower like Max's Ford Falcon XB GT coupe, to Dogmeat being implied to be one of Max's dog there are little pop culture references throughout "classic" fallout. (Also, Star Trek, Monty Python, the Terminator, and tons more as well), if you can live with the dated top down graphics fallout 1 & 2 are well worth your time.
Fallout basically just took little bits of every post-apocalyptic movies and books ever made, from famous obvious ones like this to the really obscure, and just threw them all together in a great big stew. That's why I can't take seriously people who cry about changes to canon between the games. They're missing the whole point.
A Boy and His Dog is probably the most Fallout movie
I'd like to throw Six String Samurai in that category as well
When I worked in food retail I used to serve Bruce Spence (helicopter pilot) all the time, super nice guy, appreciated that a young guy knew who he was.
Allegedly the main villain "Humongous" was originally supposed to be Max's friend Jim Goose from the first film. They decided against it but you can see hints of the idea in his burn-scarred appearance and personal items connected to law enforcement.
Nice! We had the same thought. Yeah, there's still a bunch of clues left over from previous drafts. Like how a lot of his gang seem to be ex-Cops from the original Mad Max. In the same way, Immortan Joe from Fury Road could kind of be interpreted to be Toecutter from the original Mad Max. He has a facial injury much like you'd get if you smashed face first into semi truck.
Goose bulked up considerably then. Must've been the physical therapy.😁
@@dr.burtgummerfan439 It was a Swedish Weightlifter who played Lord Humungus.
Interesting. I always thought that Humongous' burns/etc. were from radiation from the apocalyptic war discussed at the beginning.
BTW, the actor that played Immortan Joe in Fury Road is the *same* actor that played Toecutter. The characters aren't linked, but it is the same actor.
Oh ! I didn't know. It would have been so cool
One of the greatest action films ever! I love saying, "I'll drive that tanker." My Australian accent is crap, but my friends know what I mean. Love it.
I love inside jokes between friends, especially movie quotes. Met a lot of cool people at work through the years based on their movie quote game.
@@EssEll9791 I have a friend and for legitimately 20 years any time we see one another we greet each other with ‘right?!’ ‘WRONG!’ From Commando. Absolutely no idea why those lines haha
The part when the Gyro Captain says "HEY! Hehyheyhehyhey!" is a line I still do, as well as the Mechanic's assistant 's "Okay!".
Lord Humungus has to be the most quotable movie character ever. Everything he says is iconic.
The original orchestrated score for this film is just pure awesomeness! This film has one of the coolest intros of all time, and the final chase is so iconic.
This isn’t a hidden gem, as it was a success at the time, though I’m guessing a lot of younger folks haven’t seen it. 1982, when this came out, was one of the best years of film. That, and 1999. Both years are full of highly influential bangers
YES. Two great years for cinema.
I personally think this movie has absolutely been lost to time. I know very few people under the age of 30 who know of Mad Max other than Fury road
Plus in the early to mid 80's there were a lot of films like this, though not as good. Probably a lot of rip offs of this one.
@@paulmurgatroyd6372 not probably. Definitely rip offs. This, Conan, and ET (all from 1982) lead to whole video stores worth of rip-offs.
@@shaithis77 Everyone had E.T. 😄
Usually in one of those VHS storage cases that looks like a book.
These were HUUUGE in the 80's!!.. as a kid then I and my friends soaked them up big time then. And tried re-creating them on our BMX bikes all the time. How we all lived to adulthood is beyond me.
The vehicle they were flying is called a Gyrocopter. You can do a search for it.
That fade out and 'He lives only in my memories....' DEFINES EPIC.
This is the movie that made Mel Gibson a star. This actually got a US release where the first one didn't. We didn't know it was actually a sequel until cable tv came out in the 80's.
Love this film. I see Mad Max less as an action series and more like a tragedy of man. All these people at one time or another in this world may have just been everyday people. Working at a supermarket or a bank, or just every day people who lost it all and survival is all that is left, both sides. It all sums up for me in the speech Humangus gives where he says the line "I understand your pain. We all lost someone we loved." All these poor souls are broken.
Also reminiscent of the Tina speech in thunderdome, about who she was, and who she became the day after.
When this was brand-new, my friends and I saw it in a double bill with another post-apocalyptic S.F. movie, 175's "A Boy and His Dog". One of the best double-features you could imagine!
And we saw it on one of Montreal's largest movie screens, in the Cinema V repertory theater. Is till consider "The Road Warrior" to be the best "Mad Max" flick, by far.
Oh. Yes. James ... Add "A Boy and His dog" to your list.
I read the story, "A Boy And His Dog," before the movie came out. If I remember correctly it was written by Harlan Ellison.
At the time it came out, this and Raiders of the Lost Ark were the two most action movies made up to date. I loved it when I first watched it on home video in 1982 and still love it today. I think Fury Road is excellent at recreating a lot of the excitement I felt watching this, but there's only one Road Warrior and I'll always a place in my heart for it.
Here's a bit of trivia: Lord Humungous was originally supposed to be Goose, Max's biker cop friend who gets burned, from the original Mad Max. He isn't, that was changed in later drafts, but there are still clues: He's horribly burned (notice he has no ears), he wears a neckbrace because his neck is broken, and much of his gang is comprised of ex-MFP Police Officers.
Well said
MadMax is about to begin.
Get prepped, mates
Interesting that you wondered who 'Mohawk Guy' was before 'the fall'. I remember reading somewhere years ago that when they were writing the story that every single character,(good guys, bad guys, everybody) got a back story. Would probably make for some interesting reading if you could find those notes.
Love love love Bruce Spence. He shows up in so many of my favorite movies
I saw Mad Max when I was in junior high. I think they must have re-run it in theaters before Road Warrior came out. It was a long time ago :P Anyway.. As a GenX-er I think it came out at a pivotal time. Older generations were told that nuclear war would destroy everything. I mean yeah, duck and cover, but the impression was that everything would end. GenX was brought up with science talking about nuclear winter and that some people would survive and, more important here, about what it would be like. Mad Max was when international society was gone, like the fringes of the world survived but were cut off. Road Warrior was in the badlands left over with radiation and anarchy. At that specific time, around Star Wars (Reagan edition) and Land of Confusion on MTV, you were pondering whether you wanted to survive a nuclear war or not. This wasn't a secret cult classic. I think it spoke to a generation in a lot of ways. There may be a lot of people who don't know about it (I think I ran the risk of the VHS breaking 😊) but there are a lot of people that probably haven't watched Aliens (another awesome sequel that's aged a bit).
Road Warrior is definitely my favorite from the series. Each has it's merits and in each, Max evolves on the edge of anarchy, and overrunning the corners into madness and back again. In Mad Max he lost everything and became what he originally fought. In Road Warrior he was deciding whether it was worth caring about anything anymore. Pretty apt for GenX at the time.
Nailed it. Me and my buds were definitely planning on how best to modify our cars for when it happened lol
As a Gen X-er myself, I second that!
We grew up with the possability of the world ending in a few hours, at any time: current generations grew up with "Let's smoke a bowl.".
Sadly, current generations missed out on a helluva time, when only your lack of an imagination could hold you back.
Just wait until you watch Beyond Thunderdome, and some of the films that copy this genre. (Cherry 2000, Miracle Mile, Tank Girl, etc.)
The gyrocopter character is the same actor who plays the Trainman out of the Matrix series if not mentioned before.
Bit of trivia for Farscape fans. I didn't realize for decades but the same actress that played the Warrior Woman also played Zhaan on Farscape and the old plant lady in Furiosa was Granny on Farscape. The guy that did the voice of Rygel also had a small part in Mad Max I.
I was working my first job at a Boy Scout summer camp when THE ROAD WARRIOR came out. A group of us went to town on our Saturday night off and saw this at the local theater. For the duration of the movie, we were no longer Boy Scouts... we were barbarians cheering big screen carnage. It was one the best movie-going experiences of my life at the time and I still love this movie.
YES!! This film is incredible! The first one left a bit to be desired for me, and this film improved on every aspect of the first for me. It’s such a great, special film
Happy to hear! I feel the same way with the second
yeah man 2 was the peak for me 3 I like I really do but it's almost like they pushed it too far from what it was. I was glad to see fury road return to form.
The 3rd is decent, but I always felt like, because of Max's popularity, they felt the need to tone down and be more family freindly.
Still good, but doesn't hold a candle to the 2nd.
@@rrmenton8016 Max punches a teenage girl out after shooting a gun at a village full of children, a mentally disabled man is used as a thug/gladiator and is then killed for the whole town to see, a little person is dunked in pig excrement, and the dying gesture of Tina Turner's main henchman is to flip the bird to the audience as he's crushed beneath a pile of twisted metal. F'ing A it's more family friendly , wouldn't have it any other way 🤣
Funny enough, this is the PG-13 DVD version, not Blu Ray R version.
"Flagrant with its flair." Well put, James. And it applies to all the Mad Max movies.
I've watched a ton of movie reviews on youtube.
This is probably my all time favorite. Watching your reactions brought me back to when I first watched it when I was a kid.
Thank you for actually paying attention and catching the little things about the store, lore, and atmosphere.
This is from a time when there were limitations to what special effects could and could not do. This is from a time where story and writing was important. Audiences could overlook bad effects if you had a good story to tell.
Mad Max is kind of a redemption story.
I grew up near where they shot, we used to get held up by filming and it was fascinating looking at how dodgy some of the set dressings looked in real life compared to how they looked in the actual movie. Mel Gibson trained the dog to follow him around by having it tied to his leg while he walked around the local reserve army grounds where they were set up.
This is the Mad Max I love the most, epic.
Great reaction as usual. Kudos to the stuntmen. That chase is probably the most brutal in film history.
The Stunt man who hits the vehicle then somersaults through the air three times before hitting the pavement got seriously injured. The stunt went wrong, and he broke his pelvis. I think he was hospitalized three months before he could start to walk again. And, they went ahead and used the footage because of how awesome it looked!
I always wonder how a stuntman would feel about that, if it was me, and I ended up in the hospital, Id be ticked if they DIDN'T use the footage, but maybe thats just the romantic in me.
What blows my mind is that in the films credits only 5 stuntmen were used. With all the stunts here, only 5 stuntmen is insane. A Hollywood movie would have had dozens and dozens required stuntmen
I was 14 when this came out. A lot of people didint see it . But the ones that did new this was it. It has is has effected the way we see the apocalypse since it was made. Not jest in film but in all of fiction and story telling over all.
Nice James. So quickly after Mad Max too. A great sequel. In many ways, a more highly focused version of the first movie, favouring all the interesting film techniques used therein. An original classic really.
Agreed!!
Mad Max and Road Warrior by George Miller; Heat by Michael Mann; The Evil Dead and ED2 by Sam Raimi are foundational examples of why it is sometimes important to re visit old ideas to execute them with new knowledge, skills, and access to resources. All three of those were ideas redone because the initial execution didn't match up to the premise but the success allowed these directors to being out the true potential of there ideas.
I’ve never seen LA Takedown, the original version of Heat. I wonder if it has the Mann magic. His first theatrical film Thief sure does, it’s as reflective of later work as it gets, a brilliant debut/statement of aesthetic purpose.
@@ronbock8291 its definitely missing his Mann magic but even Mann agrees. It is almost an exact clone in terms of script/story to Heat. He just knew he didn't do it justice so he re did it with Heat and boy did we get a masterpiece.
I can't tell you how happy I am that you watched the second movie right away. I can't wait to see your reaction to the third one. Again, a lot of people call it the weakest of the three, but I think it's the most quotable. It has some incredible characters and dialogue, great humor, and really builds on the ideas started in The Road Warrior of this whole story becoming a mythic tale. I think the reason Fury Road was so good is because it built on all of the ideas from the first three movies and perfected it.
The all-real, no-CGI really comes through. Awesome cinematography. Thank you!
This film was my introduction to the franchise and my favorite of the four. It was after viewing this movie that I went back to see the original Mad Max (1). I loved the vehicles, especially the gyrocopter. As a kid, one of my neighbors had a gyrocopter that he flew over the area farms. I loved the post-apocalyptic aesthetic and the indie-film style. I found Mad Max (3): Beyond Thunderdome to be too commercial for my taste.
Perfect timing! I was watching the Australian show called "Housos" and the newest episode recreated the camp/base area from this movie! School bus and giant tires and all.
Thanks for this and congrats on the YT plaque, so deserved, as always, stay awesome, stay genuine.. much love
Shoutout to my fellow Swede Kjell Nilsson, playing the buff and masked main bad guy in this movie.
I saw this movie in 1985 when I was 6 years old. My family was driving cross country from the east coast to the west coast and we had stopped in Little Rock, Arkansas to stay at a motel. This movie came on TV that night and I remember watching it on the motel room TV. My mom and dad were never ones to tell me I couldn't watch a movie. I remember renting Meatballs II when I was around 8 or 9 years old from a local video store and seeing movies like The Howling and Hellraiser around the same time. There's a good documentary that came out in 2008 called "Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild Untold Story of Ozploitation" which goes through some of the Australian movies made in the 70s and 80s that were low budget horror, action, and comedy films. The first two Mad Max films are considered by some to be part of that Ozploitation genre.
A friend from work told me about this great movie on HBO called Mad Max The Road Warrior and I thought what a cheesy title. I finally watched it and was blown away.That was over 40 years ago and I have been an action movie fan ever since. I'm always impressed with your choices. In fact the first movie I watched on your channel was Apocalypto - directed by Mel Gibson! Great channel James.
Mad Max is amazing. I watched these as a kid, even though I definitely shouldn't have. There are currently 4 movies. And one video game, if you're interested. It's open world with a lot of car driving/building, hand to hand combat, and desolate landscapes.
3 great actors in this that went on to do some great stuff:
Bruce Spence as the gyro captain (does a lot of character acting, was the creepy guy telling Obi-Wan they were being held hostage in Ep.3)
Virginia Hey as one of the warriors (later went on to play Zhaan in Farscape)
Michael Preston as the leader of the refinery camp (was later in Airwolf and Highlander: The Series) :D
I’m so glad you came up quick with the 2nd one, I’m so excited!
And the editing. Dang the editing is so tight. This is a masterclass in making an action movie.
It’s always a joy to see someone discover this movie for the first time. Thanks man
This is one of the best action movies ever! I remember when I was 'bout 9 years old and saw this... Mind blowing! :)
Thanks for reacting to this. I can’t believe more people don’t react to it.
this was one of the big influences on post apocalyptic genres. a forgotten gem from the past is "Radioactive Dreams"
George Miller basically invented the vision of a post apocalyptic warrior hellscape that dominated a generation of filmmakers. Say "Mad Max Post Apocalpytic Hellscape" and everyone has an image of what you're talking about, weird souped up hotrods with mounted guns and crossbows, makeshift armor made piecemeal out of hockey gear, Mohawks etc. People have that vision even if they never saw this film because it's so influential it's seeped through into popular culture and general consciousness (see the Rick and Morty episode where they spend time in such an environment). This is similar to Bladerunner inventing a whole vision of a grimy futuristic urban dystopia that got ripped off by a million films since.
I've seen this movie like a hundred times lol. I love it.
I probably watch this 100 times before I hit puberty. Had a tape I recorded off of HBO.
That is a Girocopter he's flying, the handgun Lord Humungus has is a S&W model 29 better known as the Dirty Harry gun.
Well, the Dirty Harry gun is the 6" barrel. This one is more like the Taxi Driver gun with the 8 3/8" barrel.
Saw this in a double feature in a second run theater when it first came out. The other film was Blade Runner. What an amazing film night.
Damn, that’s beats out my Raiders of the Lost Ark & Dragonslayer as best double feature!
@@goldenageofdinosaurs7192 That's a pretty amazing double feature as well. I've always thought Dragonslayer is a very under rated film.
Got a notification for this yesterday but was to busy. Finally getting to see this reaction now. This Trilogy are some of my favorite movies
One of my all-time favourites. It's a perfect action/sci-fi/thriller. Best of the Mad Max series overall.
This has been one of my favorite movies as far back as I can remember. I had a VHS tape recorded off of HBO of this movie as a kid and watched it all the time.
I've always called it the ultimate guy movie and I still stand by those words. I loved Fury Road but I still think The Road Warrior is the better, more complete movie.
As kids, this movie was forever in the rotation of movies. We had such fun movies growing up and this was one of our favorite films. Top tier 80's movie.
The scene where the motorcycle is chasing the tanker and it hits that wrecked car and you see the motorcycle rider do cartwheels through the air, that was an actual on-set accident during filming of the chase. The stuntman got wrecked too, as I recall he broke his collarbone and several other things. The cameras caught the whole thing and George Miller loved the shot so much that he kept it in the movie, even though it was not a stunt. I hope that stuntman got a crap-ton of money for that.
You should check out this movie from 1959 called On the Beach. It takes place mostly in Australia after WWIII. It's about an American nuclear submarine that goes to Australia after the war. As far as anyone knows the entire Northern Hemisphere is irradiated and it is impossible to live there. But then they start getting a radio signal from Seattle. It's in Morris code but it is nonsense, as if the radio operator doesn't know Morris Code and is just hitting the key randomly.
It can sort of be a prequel to Mad Max.
This is really the foundation of the Mad Max series! It is the best without doubt. Thanks for reviewing it.
Any time this movie was on tv, no matter how far in, we always watched this movie in our family growing up. I'll never stop loving it
I've found the storytelling in the Mad Max Road Warrior, Beyond Thunderdome, and Fury Road is thematically similar to American Westerns. A hero emerges from the desert/wasteland and appears before a people/town in its time of need, encounters terrible hardships but ultimately saves the day before returning to the obscurity from whence he came. He's more folklore hero than an actual person in those films.
He's central to the story he appears in but the story isn't necessarily about him outside of his struggles with his own morality at points and struggling against the film's antagonists. In Road Warrior the story he appears in is really the people of that small gas town; and it's told by the boy who worshipped him as a hero. In Thunderdome it's both the story of the people of Thunderdome and the children of the wasteland oasis awaiting their savior and the oppression of Barter-Town. In Fury Road the story is Furiosa's and Immortan Joe's wives and Max arrives to battle to save them. But in the end he always returns to wandering the wasteland regardless of what he's accomplished.
👏🏻👏🏻 very interesting observation
"That's dishonest...Low!!!!!" hahaha one of my favorite lines from the tall guy
My dad was a movie projectionist when this movie was released, he would crank the sound up for that opening scene with the blower it was great
When this came out we were young teens and we WORSHIPPED this movie. We had it on VHS and replayed the action scenes a million times, slow mo etc. hehehe
That isn't a can of beans, man, that is canned Dog food. I still absolutely love that shot of the stunt guy cartwheeling through the air after hitting the car wreck on his bike, that was a real stunt and that guy did not walk away, he was carried.
This is one of my favorite films ever. My dad took me to the theater when I was 12 years old to see this film.
I saw this in a theater with about 7 other moviegoers, and I was blown away.
It puts me in mind of classic mythology, where the hero goes on to the next adventure.
"With the defeat of the Humongous and his band of raiders, and the loss of their home, the Refinery people moved onward to a new home, uniting with other survivors and refugees, eventually becoming the Great Northern Tribe. Max would continue his journey in the wasteland, seeking his future... but that is another story."
When I was younger was watching the movie for the 4th time in a theater with a first-timer. He had a huge leg cast and had it propped up on the seat back in front of him. When the chase scene goes silent as the boy tries to get the shotgun shells, I knew what was coming. Watching my friend's leg raise in the air with that jolt moment was hilarious. I guess that was my first time watching a "reaction" to a movie I had already seen. :)
I was 12 when my cousin and I sneaked into the local theater to watch this. From then until now it has been my favorite movie ever.
I remember my dad having this movie on VHS. I literally grew up watching this. Very nostalgic and a classic
Epic masterpiece. Glad you liked it man!!! Early 80's was the best.
For those Farscape fans, the warrior woman, played by Virginia Hey, is Zhaan on Farscape.
Hell yeah dude, was waiting for this one. These are a must watch
Mel Gibson was born in New York, but his family moved to Australia in the late 60's. after college in New South Wales he starred in a few TV shows and on stage. Mad Max was his big break that catapulted him to an international star.
I have a feeling that George Miller had a Fury Road style epic in his mind, when he made this, but the technology simply wasn't there yet, for that. And he did a wonderful job with what he had, when his means limited his creative vision, and he did a wonderful job when he had all the means to do exactly what he imagined.
One of my favorite movies of all time. I've been watching this movie almost every year since I was 6 years old. I'm 37 now.
Watched this as a little kid, at a Drive in from the back of our V8 Sandman Ute, double feature with Excalibur for whatever reason...one of the best nights of my childhood! Hahaha!
This is just one of dozens of movies my dad showed me at all too young a age and I’m thankful he did every day. If he hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t be the cinephile I am now.
I stopped keeping track somewhere around 14 or so views, but somehow this movie is the one I've watched more than any other in my life. Funny the things an 11 year old is willing to do.
I wanted nothing more than to have a dog like the one Max had.
At the time, the imagery was absolutely shocking. It was incredible. Excellent review, gem indeed.
Congrats on your 100k plaque
Here in Australia I went to to the movies and saw this when it first started showing and I loved the movie so much after I walked out of the cinema I bought another ticket and watch it again the next session
Grew up watching this about once a month, for at least a few years, as a kid on a pirated VCR copy. Loved it. Great to see accents I recognised in a movie. Kennedy/Miller made a lot of great TV movies through the 1970s and 80s. The movie series is more hilarious if you’re a local and recognise who the cast have been in other productions. I think they recruited ‘the Humungous’ from going to a local Sydney gym and asking around for the biggest bloke there.
This movie is EPIC. Even after all these years this movie still ROCKS..!
When this came out, it was just The Road Warrior. I saw it first (as did every friend I had), then found Mad Max on VHS at a flea market about 2 yrs later.
Mad Max set records on the low budget/high box-office returns, but The Road Warrior is THE quintessential Mad Max movie.