Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

• Directed by George Miller and George Ogilvie
• July 10, 1985 (US) / August 8, 1985 (Australia)
• Based on characters created by George Miller and Byron Kennedy

“Remember where you are-this is Thunderdome, and death is listening, and will take the first man that screams.”

In a post-apocalyptic Australia, a drifter runs afoul of the leader of a trading settlement and leads a rebellion with children against her.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome seems to be a bit polarizing. Feels fall into the extremes for the most part. With two featured songs aimed at the Top 40 and the casting of Tina Turner, it is certainly much more Hollywood than its predecessors but that does not make it a bad film.

The story opens with a rather beautiful aerial shot that slowly closes in on Max (Mel Gibson) as he drives a makeshift wagon across the Wasteland. Where did he get the camels and the wagon? No explanation is given but this is stuff that could all have been obtained from the refinery seen in the last film-even the camels.

And that goes into how well the Mad Max movies and their universe are constructed. There’s a certain level of continuity as well as realism amongst them. Look closer and you’ll even see that Max is still suffering from the wound he received in the first film. More importantly even if you had not seen either of the preceding films you can still enjoy this particular movie. You get enough background to understand the players, but understanding is not dependent upon seeing the preceding movies. This is very accessible to the uninitiated.

As a story Beyond Thunderdome is a bit of a dark fairytale/dark fantasy film in my view. The underworld of the story is the pig farm of Bartertown. You could equate the abandoned children that Max finds to the Lost Boys of Neverland from Peter Pan. While Max is no Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed planting apples, he is a man who has a great impact all he meets and significantly changes the direction of their lives.

They picked a unique group of actors with distinctive looks and via costuming and careful character design push them into something weird. They might even be cartoonish but in a weird way they makes them dark. That aids in fairytale feel.

Tina Turner as Aunty Entity was a surprise to me. Turner gave a good performance. She is equal parts ruthless and intelligent. Her motivations are not necessarily evil, but her methods are certainly harsh. Her goals are lofty as she seems to see Bartertown as a way to restart civilization. But she aspires to be an unquestioned dictator to do as she sees needed.

Bartertown is one of the few places with electricity the production of which is controlled by a diminutive former engineer who refers to himself as Master (Angelo Rossitto) who is protected by a bodyguard called Blaster (Paul Larsson). Master is the only obstacle to Aunty’s undisputed power and is unafraid to demonstrate his power over her by cutting power to the town and making her beg to turn it back on over a loudspeaker. Enter Max as part of an assassination plot so he can get back his things that were stolen by Jedediah (Bruce Spence) and his son (Adam Cockburn).

Gibson made Max a classic hero. This is a character you can identify with and understand. Max is a damaged man but one who still has some humanity in an inhumane world. He comes off more as a cynic trying to get by. He takes nothing at face value as exemplified by the water offer and is watching and studying while trying to determine his next move.

The Mad Max films do things differently than other films of the genre. The look and the tone as well as the presentation make it unique. One of the more unusual aspects is that Max and Aunty Entity never actually get introduced. I believe the closest we get is The Collector (Frank Thring) may refer to her as ‘Aunty’ but not anything more. Not even sure if any of the characters learn Max’s name or vice versa.

Each time I watch this movie that weird version of Neverland that Max encounters the abandoned children in just disturbs me. There is so much implied yet unsaid. They don’t put a spotlight on anything that happened before the movie but these children were abandoned by the adults. They are fending for themselves and under the delusion the adults will someday come back for them. And how they are living is reminiscent of a cargo cult.

This is a unique post-apocalyptic vision. George Miller created something unlike anything else. It’s dark and strangely thought through. It’s real. It’s believable in its insanity and the characters actions. It’s as if the characters were there and spoke to him and told him what happened and he got a look at their world. We don’t get deep backstories or excessive fluff. This is a stripped-down story focusing on action and narrative.

With a score by Maurice Jarre and two great songs by Tina Turner, the music is absolutely wonderful. The music by Turner though aimed for the radio fit the film so well even though one is over the opening and both roll with the credits.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is by far my favorite of the Mad Max films. It’s quite possibly the most unique take on the concept first presented in 1979. It has fantastic action and a great story with compelling characters. This is a must see for not only action fans, but fans of great moves.

“Time counts and keeps countin’, and we knows now finding the trick of what’s been and lost ain’t no easy ride. But that’s our trek, we gotta’ travel it. And there ain’t nobody knows where it’s gonna’ lead. Still in all, every night we does the tell, so that we ‘member who we was and where we came from… but most of all we ‘members the man that finded us, him that came the salvage. And we lights the city, not just for him, but for all of them that are still out there. ‘Cause we knows there come a night, when they sees the distant light, and they’ll be comin’ home.”