Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

The Mad Max franchise is one of the rare film franchises where each film truly feels like its own animal. The original Mad Max is a classic revenge film with pseudo-Western elements, The Road Warrior is a gritty, low-budget action flick (think The Raid but with cars), and Fury Road is a stunt-driven blockbuster spectacle. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the third film in the series, is definitely the most different of the films, but that isn't to say its bad. It isn't.In this entry, Max's camel wagon (made out of his crashed V8 Interceptor) is stolen and hocked in Bartertown. Max travels there and meets with Aunty Entity, the leader of town, who promises to resupply him if he helps her take down her enemy, Master Blaster, in a Thunderdome duel (post-apocalyptic WWE with no rules). Max defeats Master Blaster but refuses to kill him, and is exiled, where he meets a tribe of oasis-dwelling children who survived a plane crash. The kids believe Max to be the long-lost pilot returning to take them back to civilization, and he eventually agrees to help them get to the mythical "Tomorrow-morrow Land".It's a given that Mel Gibson is great as Max. Tina Turner's Aunty Entity is the butt of a lot of jokes, but she really isn't that bad. Most of the other performances are pretty good, barring a few child actors that aren't great. Other givens with the Mad Max franchise include the set design and production design being great, and they are here. Bartertown, the Canyon Oasis, and the Thunderdome itself are all creative and fun to look at. The costume design is also excellent, especially for the Bartertown residents. A Bugs Bunny toy that makes an appearance is a nice Easter egg to subtly remind us of the post-apocalyptic world the films take place in.An added bonus is how quotable this film is. None of the Mad Max films feature a lot of dialogue, but much like Fury Road, there are plenty of memorable lines to be found among the general silence. "Raggedy man", "no matter where you go, there you are", "two men enter, one man leaves" "bust a deal, face the wheel"... all lines sure to illicit recognition from even casual fans of the series.The biggest issue with the movie is that it feels like two films in one. George Miller, the director, suffered some personal tragedies partway through and left the project, leaving his friend George Ogilvie to finish it. For the most part, you don't notice that directors changed halfway through, which is a testament to editing, but you can still occasionally see indications of it. Additionally, the story is very disjointed; despite Miller's best efforts to connect them at the end, the first half of the film Bartertown has very little to do with the second half, which is basically Lord of the Flies in Australia. Because both the stories are so engaging and great on their own, it doesn't take away from the film that much, but it is a bit jarring, and ideally this film would be two separate shorter films.All in all, a well-made but slightly disjointed film that is a lot of fun to watch, but is definitely the weakest of the franchise and doesn't measure up to the excellence of Road Warrior and Fury Road. But again, not to say it's bad. It's like saying winning a million dollars isn't as good as winning a million and a half dollars. I would still recommend this film to anyone who loves action movies.

The first film was very good, the sequel was good, and I was interested to complete with the third and final film in the original trilogy, especially because I knew it had a famous female singer in it, directed by George Miller (The Witches of Eastwick, Babe: Pig in the City, Happy Feet, Mad Max: Fury Road) and George Ogilvie. Basically, in the wastelands of Australia in a post-apocalyptic future, former Main Force Patrol (MFP) officer 'Mad' Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) crosses the desert, Jedediah and his son, Jedediah Jr. (Adam Cockburn), in a Transavia PL-12 Airtruk attack him, stealing his camel-drawn wagon and belongings. Continuing and following their trail on foot, Max reaches the seedy community of Bartertown, he is at first refused entry, he is brought before community founder and ruler, the ruthless Aunty Entity (Tina Turner), she offers to resupply his vehicle and equipment if he completes a task for her. Aunty explains that Bartertown depends on a crude methane refinery powered by pig faeces, which is run by a dwarf called the Master (Angelo Rossitto) and his giant bodyguard the Blaster (Paul Larsson). "Master Blaster" and Aunty hold an uneasy truce for control of Bartertown, but the Master has begun to challenge her leadership, Aunty wants Max to provoke a confrontation with Blaster in the gladiatorial arena Thunderdome, where conflicts are resolved by a duel to the death. A convict called Pig Killer (Robert Grubb), sentenced to work for slaughtering a pig to feed his family, befriends Max, who enters the refinery to size up to Master Blaster, he finds his stolen vehicle, and discovers the Blaster is exceptionally strong, but sensitive to high-pitched noises. Max faces Blaster in the Thunderdome, using his weakness to gain the upper hand, but refuses to kill him, discovering he has special needs and the intellect of a child, Master finds out about Aunty's arrangement to have Blaster killed, he vows to have the refinery, and by extension, Bartertown, shut down. An enraged Blaster executed, Master is imprisoned, and Max is exiled, he is bound on a horse and sent in a random direction into the wasteland, the horse perishes in a sinkhole, allowing Max to free himself, and he presses on. Near death, Max is found in the desert by desert dweller Savannah Nix (Helen Buday), he is hauled to a community of children and teenagers who live on an oasis, they are all survivors of a crashed Boeing 747, and abandoned by their parents who left to find civilisation. The youngsters believe Max is a pilot named Captain G. L. Walker, returned to fix their plane and fly them to civilisation, Max denies this and insists they remain in the oasis for relative safety, knowing the only "civilisation" within reach is Bartertown. Some of the children, led by Savannah, leave anyway, determined to find the prophesized "Tomorrow-morrow Land", Max stops them by force, but another tribe member Scrooloose (Rod Zuanic) sets them free during the night and leaves with them. The tribe's leader Slake M'Thirst (Tom Jennings) asks Max to go after them, he agrees, taking a few of the children with him to help. They find Savannah's group, but they are unable to save one of the children from a sinkhole, with limited supplies, they are forced to head for Bartertown. They sneak in via the underground, and with the help of Pig Killer they free Master, escape in a train-truck, and destroy Bartertown's methane refinery in the process. Aunty leads the inhabitants in a pursuit, catching up to them, Max's group slows them while Scrooloose hijacks one of the vehicles, which happens to be Max's vehicle. The group comes across Jedediah and his son, Max coerces the pilot into helping his group escape in their aeroplane, after clearing a path the plane is able take off and escape, but Max is left to Aunty's mercy. Aunty spares his life, having come to respect Max, she departs and is presumably making good on her vow to rebuild Bartertown, the children are flown to the coast by Jedediah, there they discover the nuclear-devastated ruins of Sydney. Years later, the children have established a small society for themselves, wanderers have been lost in the ruins, Savannah is now the leader, and reciting the story of their journey, and the man who saved them, Max, who still wanders the desert to places unknown. Also starring Frank Thring as The Collector, Angry Anderson as Ironbar and George Spartels as Blackfinger. Gibson is sort of still charismatic, but he is perhaps not as "mad" anymore, and Turner is certainly an interesting choice as the local dictator, the gladiatorial battle sequences are alright, the scenes with the nomadic warrior surrounded by children I recognised as being spoofed by South Park, and there is a pretty good chase sequence near the end, but it is perhaps a bit slow and not enough of a flow with the story, but it is not a bad futuristic action adventure. Mel Gibson was number 47 on The 100 Greatest Sex Symbols, and number 17 on The 100 Greatet Movies Stars. Worth watching!

Yes I still love the trilogy - and that includes Beyond Thunderdome! I am not a big fan of action films, most of them I could care-a-less about (meaning I can do without them) but there is something about Mad Max's story that simply enjoy. What happened to Max in the first film was tragic but he lives on and his story continued into the Tunderdome and Beyond.Tina Turner is a great villain, Mel Gibson is great as usual. The story is good so don't understand why some are not happy with this 3rd film and conclusion. Maybe it's just the fact I grew up with the trilogy and I have great nostalgic memories or maybe the film really is good.8/10

Beyond Thunderdome was the final entry to the original trilogy and it was definitely the weakest of the three for although at first it seems a totally fine continuations of this gasoline fueled apocalypse at the middle point it is combined with a plot about a society which is somewhat reminiscing of Peter Pan's Lost Boys. Even though that change doesn't break the film ,that sudden change in tone was a bit confusing to me and if you think it for more the five minutes, then you find out some quit big plot wholes.To start once again we follow Max (Jesus that dude can't catch a break) years after the events of the Road Warrior as he stumbles to the city of Bartertown, a town in which under to authority of Tina Turner at her prime, has prosper despite the fact that by that point petrol is 100% gone. To be honest the structure of the city is very interesting as also the idea, how would a town be after oil is gone, what could it use for energy, what are the rules of this society. In general if the film had focus in that city and the clash between our beloved anti-hero and the sexy dictator, it would definitely work out.Unfortunately it didn't go that way and though I don;t want spoil the movie, to put it in general after the middle of the film this Lost Boys story-line is added and markedly decease the quality of the final product over all. I have no clue why Miller put that in, but my educated guess is that, the death of the producer Byron Kennedy and his replacement with George Ogilvie, is the main reason for that. For the Mad Max series was practically created by both Miller and Kennedy and the lose of the main-producer surely hampered the production.Nevetheless it is a serviceable film and worth your time, if not for any reason then at list to see a interesting take of a post-apocalyptic society. As for the other plot, well just go with it, you can't do something less for that.