Mad Max

Not many low budget flicks age very well but Mad Max certainly has.

I watched it again recently, as I only had vague memories of watching it years ago, but I found it to hold up well. Only by reading the other user comments did I discover that it had been dubbed! What a load of crap. Why would a movie in English be dubbed in English! If you cant understand Aussie accents, you dont deserve the pleasure of seeing this movie. I cant imagine this movie having the same effect without the Australian accents.

What George Miller did with this fairly simple script is remakable. The camera angles and speeds with which this film moves along at times were thrilling, Not to mention the great stunts and even the barbaric humour (the ripped off arm!).

The car which Mel Gibson eventually gets revenge in (an Aussie Ford coupe) looked as menacing as a car could! built for the movie for A$35 Grand, a replica was used for the final crash 'n burn scenes of Mad Max 2. The original car was salvaged and is still around somewhere, appearing at car shows in the late 80's.

After not seeing it for about seven years, I just saw it on DVD for the first time. I remembered it as an exciting near-chaos-future adventure with highway cops in muscle cars and one insane biker gang. It's great how it keeps on standing the test of time. High speed and raw power are of every age, past and future. The way the highway action is shot in this movie simply stays exhilarating, putting it in the top ranking of best high-speed-chase movies ever. Seeing the camera follow the highway marker at high speed, along with the sound of a bike- or V8-engine delivers a Mad and chaotic but really cool result. The pace of the movie remains considerably high, without many slow moments.

Some aspects of the movie have (understandably) dated. Obviously the 70's clothing and hair styles. Sometimes the acting is a little over the top, and some characters could come directly from a comic book. And of course the story is not that deep or difficult. It's partly action-thriller, partly science fiction adventure. All weaknesses are covered and compensated by lots of a-moral fun though.

At the heart of this one of a kind look movie, there is a hero character named Max. This speed-demon-cop is at the top of his game on the highway, ruthlessly dealing with maniacs ravaging his jurisdiction. But he is also a happy family man with his wife and son. This duality makes the character human, timeless and very memorable. In some scenes you can clearly see Mel Gibson was only just getting into acting. For a rookie he was doing a good job nonetheless.

Others strengths lie within the scary nature of the biker gang. An extravagant rag-tag band of maniacs, led by the iconic villain The ToeCutter. To this day, their actions remain tough and very disturbing. It will have you staring at the screen dead serious, making Max' battle against them even more gratifying.

There is much to say about this movie, but first and foremost it is a must see. A cult classic still as enjoyable as it was nearly 30 years ago.

This classic is set a few years from now, a dangerous, desolate world of the future where rules the strongest law and useless Halls of Justice. It concerns about a police named Max (Mel Gibson), some cutthroats and revenge takes place. Max lives along with his wife (Joanne Samuel) and son. The nasties attack , rape, ravage to hapless and unfortunates. But vengeance will be terrible against some bands of depraved crazies thirsty for blood on high facility roads.

This exciting picture packs kinetic action , thrills, chills, shocks and lots of blood and violence. Spectacular stunt-wok plenty of motorcycle races with bounds and leaps and explosions . Top-notch Mel Gibson as revenger angel at one of his first main roles, he embarks a criminal vendetta against vicious murderous. Rumbling and screeching musical score by Brian May. Special and weird futuristic atmosphere created by the cameraman David Eggby. The motion picture is stunningly directed by George Miller, author of the excellent post-apocalypse ¨Mad Max¨ trilogy along with the writer and producer Byron Kennedy. It's followed by ¨Mad Max 2, the Road warrior¨ with Gibson , Bruce Spence, Vernon Welles and Mike Preston ; and ¨Mad Max beyond Thunderdome¨ with Tina Turner, George Ogilvie, Frank Thring and again Bruce Spence. In addition, numerous imitations, rip offs, and exploitations ,especially Italians products. Rating : Good, better than average, this is the most successful Aussie movie of all time.

It was the very rawness and budgetary constraints of this little flick that made it what it was. A new kind of action hero in a new kind of world! Gibson's laughably underpaid (though unavoidably so) contribution cannot be underestimated. He imbued Max with more than the script actually merited. An attitude perhaps that struck a chord with many office-desk (wannabe) vigilantes. After all, Max takes control of his own life - is not cowed by authority. Max is everyman, the one inside us that few get the chance to let loose. He is part Jesus, part Che, part James Dean, all Australian yobbo! But this guy gets the job done - drop Max into Iraq next month and see how far Saddam Hussein gets trying to stock up on sarin!

Raw energy is what MAD MAX was all about! Distilled, tempered and inflamed by the time THE ROAD WARRIOR came around but at this juncture. a man on a mission and with the best tricked-up car since....well, THE CAR ! For those of you incidentally, totally mortified that his glorious black-hearted Interceptor was rendered dead-meat in MAD MAX 2, be comforted by the fact that it DOES in fact reside still in a museum in London (Why there and not Sydney I know not...perhaps for the same reason Australia still is not host to the cricket-ashes urn!) What chance of either's return when Greece can't even get the Elgin Marbles back?

Much has been made (and remembered) of the high-power car chases in this film, held by many in absolute reverence. In fact after the main cops vs The Nightrider work-out in the first few minutes of the flick, its pretty much all downhill in the action stakes - nothing subsequently in MAD MAX (1) comes near this brief sequence. This situation (with a way bigger budget) was inarguably reversed by the time THE ROAD WARRIOR came along. The stunts in THAT film have never been surpassed and remember this was without CGI fx.

MAD MAX has that indefinable 'something" the sequels didn't...perhaps just a raw innovation couldn't be duplicated - rather like ur first kiss. It might not have been the best, but it sure IS fondly remembered.

Mel Gibson is Mad Max in, well, "Mad Max!" This is the film that made Mel an international superstar. In his starring debut, Mel plays Max, a leather-clad cop in the near future who fights to control security on the road from vicious bikers and road thugs. When the thugs lead by the psychotic Toecutter kill Max's wife and baby, our hero is livid with vengeance. Armed with his armor-plated muscle car and a sawed-off shotgun, Max wreaks turbo-powered revenge on the murderous punks.

Though a bit dated compared with the action films we have today, "Mad Max" still stands out as a very impressive movie. For one thing, this film had a tiny budget. Well, as proven in "El Mariachi," a movie doesn't need a $1 million budget if you have a creative story and imagination. "Mad Max" stands out as a classic low-budget flick that made it big without the intense u