Viewed in
2010
Premise
Mel Gibson stars as a cop in lawless Australia run amok by motorcycle gangs.
Liked
Chase scenes.
Disliked
Brian May's score.
Hated
Pretty much everything else.
Thoughts
Wow, that was a horrible action movie.
Some of the action scenes were pretty cool, especially the car and motorbike chases. Too bad we all know a car is usually stronger. The best moment was a car running over a group of bikes off a bridge. Thanks to its low budget, there were plenty of repeating, Benny Hill-like sped up action footage .
That was the only good thing I could say about it. One main problem was the incomprehensible story. I guess they were trying to portray a post-apocalyptic world, but it seemed pretty stable with the existence of middle class, uncorrupted police force, and working telephones. Even during the numerous road scenes, I saw smoothly-paved roads with vegetated fields in the background.
The bad guys were supposed to be bad-ass and imposing, instead they came off as plot-driven buffoons. As for the good guys, they were pretty boring, including Mel Gibson as the title character. There was not much "mad" in his Max.
Equally worse was the extremely choppy pacing. It was like reading a book, but with blank pages between each chapter, or the following chapter starting before the previous chapter had ended. For a 90 minute flick, it dragged on forever.
With biker gangs, loud muscle cars, leather jackets, post-apocalyptic themes, boring characters, lame story and uneven editing, it was like a student film. At the same time, Mad Max jump-started Gibson's career, pioneered post-apocalyptic movies, and gave Australian cinema world recognition. Clearly one of those movies that was more important than entertaining.
What I would change
A lot of stuff.
