ALL SCI-FI

[Bogmeister]

______________________________________

MEL GIBSON is MAD MAX again in



After the phenomenal Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior (1981), star Mel Gibson and Director George Miller decided to go for a 3rd stab at the modern mythology they had created.

Miller brought on board George Ogilvie as co-director to help with all the scenes involving the children.

Uh-oh, children, you're probably saying to yourself?

Yep. Max, after an initial adventure in the seedy Bartertown, accidentally finds himself in a lost oasis populated by all these kids, who all grew up there after some airplane crash years ago.



This continues the post-holocaust setting of The Road Warrior, where now it seems everything has settled down to a roughly pre-industrial new age. Singer Tina Turner rules Bartertown, including the main attraction, Thunderdome, the latest gladiatorial arena in which all problems are settled.

Some of this is mildly interesting, in terms of creating a new kind of civilization from scratch. It's entertaining, but like many of the low budget sci-fi films of the eighties, this higher-budgeted effort merely retreads much ground already covered in The Road Warrior, only at a slower pace.

Where in The Road Warrior the poetic yet violent images seemed natural, here they seem forced and overdone. This includes the scenes with the children where, though their new language & mannerisms are original, it becomes tedious to listen to after a few minutes.

All these drawbacks may explain why there wasn't a 4th Mad Max film 3 or 4 years after this one. Gibson was still excellent and commanding in the role that made his career, so he certainly wasn't the reason the film series petered out here. There were plans for a 4th film recently, like a couple of years ago, and filming actually began, I think, but things had to be canceled for various reasons, including problems with the locations. Then it got greenlit again . . . then . . . I dunno.

____________

[Bongopete]

I really enjoyed 'The Road Warrior' and to a much lesser extent, 'Mad Max'...but this one least of all.

It seemed like it suffered from that old Hollywood formula of taking a sequel and throw a lot of money at it. Didn't care for the kids (not Pepe, but still kids), didn't buy their Lord of the Flies existence.

I HATE this whole style of Mohawks and stylings that the last two road warrior movies seemed to start.

It had a nice opening song however.

[orzel-w]

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Great Caesar's ghost, I've got a download of Fury Road I'd forgotten to watch! Thanks for reminding me, Wayne. I'll get 'round to doing that in the next few days.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[The Spike]

Even allowing for my unabashed love of the first two films in the franchise, and sweeping away any sort of biased leanings I might of had for the character of Max, I just can't bring myself to rate at average this cartoonery waste of space that so nearly soils what had gone before it.

Gone is the rugged nasty streak that brought feeling to the character Mad Max Rockatansky, gone is the impacting feeling of desolation in an apocalyptic world — and more crucially, gone is director George Miller's passion for the franchise.

The dreadful score matches the cartoon heart of the film.It seems that the makers didn't really know what to do with the amount of cash they were given to make this third instalment.

Sure the stunts are spot on (to be expected by now), and of course Miller manages to paint a barren desert landscape by purely lifting from what he has done before.

Yet he clearly struggled for fresh ideas with the action, since "The Road Warrior's" crowning glory of the Petrol Tanker pursuit is replicated here — only he uses a train instead!!.

It's just a very poor show that may have seemed like an ambitious turn of events back in the mid 1980s. But when viewing the three films together now, Thunderdome just comes across as a director losing his edgy approach, whilst sadly getting caught between the mix of comedy and fantasy action.

And the truth is that neither of those genre slants would have worked singularly, in the context of this series.

Anyway. I give the film 3/10, purely for one real good Thunderdome fight sequence . . . while the stunt men here deserve some credit at the very least. But this is the third time I have tried to like this film, and as a glutton for punishment as I undoubtedly am, I won't be trying again — ever.
_________________
The quality of mercy is not strnen.

[Gord Green]

I enjoyed this film very much! I lioved the previous movies, but the inclusion of Tina Turner was a plus!

The fact that I once dated a girl who was the spitting image of Tina both in flesh and spirit was a real plus!!

I felt that I REALLY understood what the ordeal could be like!!!
_________________
There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Having recently bought all the DVDs of the Fast and Furious franchise and then binge watching them over a two week period, I might be ready to give these gloomy post-apoptotic movies another try.

However, they've never appealed to me before because I prefer movies which are optimistic, the kind which attempt to inspire mankind to work towards a future like the one we were shown in the late 1950s.

I mean, just because we now know that mankind is plagued by morons who want to destroy each other in senseless wars based on differences in their religions. that's no reason to think that we might someday ditch our baseless cultural beliefs and start using logic so solve our problems!
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[WadeVC]

[scotpens]

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome feels like two different movies spliced together. After Max is exiled from Bartertown and found by the kids (who speak a jargon that sounds like Popeye with an Australian accent), it goes all allegorical and quasi-Biblical. At the end, the children are led to their promised land -- never mind why anyone would want to live in the bombed-out ruins of Sydney!

[Bud Brewster]

[quote="WadeVC"As optimistic as I try to be, unfortunately I think, overall, we as a species have become too arrogant to impart logic and common sense.

I sadly see a future where we will eventually destroy ourselves. We just don't seem to learn from history. [/quote]
I must confess that I'm not really as hopeful as I sounded in the statement I made above. I can desperately wish that mankind will grow up, but I can't truly believe it will happen.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[WadeVC]

[Pow]

Watched an episode of comedian Bill Mahr's political talk show Real Time with BM. I forget the exact context of the discussion, but at one point Bill sadly shook his head over something saying "Let's face it, we just are a nasty species, we really are."

Watching the national news with reports ranging from yet another mass school shooting to nations starting wars, and anything else negative you can think of, Bill's not wrong.

[Bud Brewster]

_____________________________________________

Unfortunately, I must agree. America is no longer the land of the free and home of brave which it was when we were young.

None of us now look forward to the bright future which we were shown on the 1950s. That dream is gone . . .
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[WadeVC]