Mad Max : Au-delà du dôme du tonnerre

Why why why did someone think it was a good idea to fill Max Max 3 with a bunch of annoying kids? Its like half way through the movie the crew was switched and they thought they were making Oliver!

Such a horrible way to end a most amazing trilogy.

Max goes from road warrior to babysitter.

Still any Max is better than no Max.

The first half of this film -- the part with Bartertown, Thunderdome, etc -- is brilliant, not just a repeat of THE ROAD WARRIOR but a totally new concept, thoroughly fleshed out. The second half, with the lost children, isn't as good -- and, more to the point, doesn't quite mesh with the first half, despite Miller's attempts to tie it all together at the end. Still, it's well above average in a genre that has increasingly come to believe (wrongly) that special effects are more important than plot and character.

This will be silly and disjointed for those who found the second mean and rampaging. Spielberg had intervened in popular imagination, so there's a kid friendly dash of Indiana Jones along with some Lone Ranger. But from Mad Max I come away with two things, the narrative edges of world we discover and the cinematic action of the chase.

I don't take to the Bartertown portion of the film, it may be closer to Road Warrior in spirit but all I see here is rushed spectacle intended for a boorish audience, contraptions. We do see a bit more of the Max world around this place but not in any way I care for. It feels like this part was bolted on when they decided to turn a separate script into a Mad Max movie.

No, I find myself oddly captivated by the Lord of the Flies portion. There are glimmers of magic for me in the way the narrative of something that crashed from the skies one day has been preserved in the minds of kids. The way it's revealed through a screen that frames remnants of half- remembered story, the chorus of awestruck kids for whom all of this has profound meaning.

It does open up a window to a whole swathe of Max world but this time with deep feeling, as myth the kids have vowed to keep in memory and bide their time for. Sure, we are in Goonies territory and again in the end with the city, but there's hushed yearning here, an almost Biblical kind.

The rest is in the big chase, a train this time, briefer than usual and over before it really exhilarates, as if more by obligation than real affinity for it. They would eventually build a whole other film around it, extending it to an entire circus around the rig, but that would have to wait for 30 years.

When he is attacked and robbed of his animals, Max Rockatansky follows his attackers to Bartertown – a den of deceit and violence that is made possible thanks to the methane power source from pigs kept underground. Bartertown may be ruled above ground by Aunty Entity but the real owner is Master Blaster – a team of two men who control the power supply. In exchange for his goods, Aunty offers Max a deal where he will challenge Blaster to a fight in the town's duelling arena and kill him –thus removing the muscle and putting Master under Aunty's control. Max accepts, although he rightly suspects that he will be the next to be betrayed.

At least one reviewer on this site has said that the reason people dislike this film is because it is about the start of a new world whereas the other two Mad Max films were about the end of the world as we know it. Sadly I believe he is mistaken because I think the reason people dislike this film is because it is messy, excessive, unconvincing (even within the apocalyptic situation it makes no sense) and just isn't really any good. The plot swings between an excessive violent society at the start, to a child colony in the middle to a big noisy chase scene right at the end. In terms of the narrative that connects this all, don't worry about that because it doesn't really work and just feels very episodic throughout – making it messy and uninteresting. It is unconvincing and, although I accept that the entire film is fantasy, you gotta wonder where all the excesses and such came from and how we were supposed to buy into it; hell, a fuel blockade by lorry drivers brought the UK to its knees a few years ago but yet we're suppose to believe this? The apocalyptic here lacks imagination and just feels like the sort of thing that exists in an art director's mind rather than something that convinces.

The episodic feel isn't helped by the rambling, pointless dialogue associated with the children – it tries to have a mysticism that nothing else in the film has worked to deserve; however it could be helped by developing Max better. If he was a strong lynch pin holding all these bits and pieces together then it would matter less but he isn't – he is just a grunting rock that doesn't really have a character to speak of and I had little or no interest in him at all – even when he becomes "caring and sharing" I didn't care because I had had nothing to work with up till that point. Turner is not terrible but she doesn't really act and just sort of swans around in an unconvincing manner. In that regard she is like the majority of the cast, who don't really give the performances – whether it e the clunky child actors or the grunting brutes that are just stunt fodder. The stunts are OK and the final chase provides some distraction but without really caring about the plot or the characters, I found it hard to get into any action.

Overall a disappointing film whose core failing is the lack of a convincing new world. The film feels episodic and lacks anything to hold it together. Throwing a lot of cars around at the end does provide some distraction but by then it was too late for me and the whole thing was clunky, pointless and surprisingly uninteresting.

This movie was much maligned when it came out in 1985, but that was due to the spectacular qualities of its predecessors, "Mad Max" and "The Road Warrior." Taken out of comparison with the other two, this movie is still solid post-apocalyptic fun, but it's lighter and slightly less violent than "Road Warrior" (as is evidenced by the PG-13 rating.) The actors' performances are perfectly adequate for the action, and the chase scenes bear all the hallmarks of Miller's craftsmanship (which contemporary directors should seriously consider studying and revitalizing.) You just won't see any arrow-riddled bodies slamming into the pavement at 60 mph or watch manned motorcycles sucked under the wheels of a big-rig. This one is about the kids. Think Hook in the wasteland and that starts to approach it.

If you saw this movie in the theaters 25 years ago and walked out hating it, give it another chance. Just don't see "RW" right beforehand. No reason to hobble your experience with unrealistic expectations.