5. Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
The film the producers allowed not to be called MAD MAX 3 is a step further down the road of apocalyptic SF. Mel Gibson, though not visibly much older than in the 1979 original, is a bedraggled figure roaming the desert (filmed on location outside Sydney) for over 15 years now. That torn leather police uniform must be starting to reek, and theres no longer enough fuel to power his vehicle his wagon now drawn by a camel, not previously noted as indigenous to the Antipodes. Theres a sense of wonderment to BEYOND THUNDERDOME. Not as violent as either of the first two movies, its imagined societies of Bartertown and the desert home of the lost childrens tribe being closer to the fantastic worlds of the original STAR TREK TV series, or even THE WIZARD OF OZ. The matriarch of Bartertown, rock singer Tina Turner as the statuesque Aunty Entity, presides over an improvised society where the only fuel left is methane harvested from pig waste. Surprisingly perhaps, Oz movie chronicler Slater, who loves MAD MAX and MAD MAX 2, thinks there was a whiff of pigsh*t about the whole enterprise. I tried to watch that three times, he laughs. The third time, last Christmas day, I got round to reviewing it which shows how much was going on for Christmas. Its an awful movie. Understandably, because when they were on location shooting George Millers best friend died in a helicopter accident. Byron Kennedy was the co-originator of the MAD MAX series, creating the first story with Miller. MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME carries the dedication, For Byron... Miller could not direct the movie, claims Slater, he only directed the action scenes, it was some other guy doing the movie. Its dull, its pedestrian, its unexciting its everything that MAD MAX shouldnt be. He may know his Oz-ploitation, but many would demur from such a jaded viewpoint. (BEYOND THUNDERDOME carries an 81% Rotten Tomatoes rating.) The film is actually full of action but its more fantastical than visceral, the first MAD MAX that could be watched by kids of all ages. Its a fantasy that borrows as much from myth and folklore as from the harder-edged pulp fiction, with imaginatively-realised battles in a post-apocalyptic colosseum. Slater is having none of it. And the Gyrocopter Pilot, Bruce Spence, who was in the second film, is now not even part of Maxs memory. Its a bonkers film, its just rubbish. Indeed, mad it may be: the films most impressive fight is between Max and the Master Blaster, a composite being comprising a legless dwarf (Master) and the near-giant (Blaster) whose shoulders he rides around on. Its undeniably vivid but also lifted from Jodorowskys classic psychedelic western EL TOPO (1971), where the titular mystical gunfighter kills the Masters, one of whom is a (genuinely) legless man combining his body with an armless man. But if Max were ever to return to the screen, it seemed hed already gone about as far down this particular Yellow Brick Road as he could. Contrary to Ms Turners hit theme song at the end, he would need to know the way home...
Paul Woods
Contributor
Writer/editor/ghost-writer transfixed by crime, cinema and the serrated edges of popular culture. Those similarly afflicted are invited to make contact.
See more from
Paul