Mad Max 2 - The Road Warrior

Whilst Mad Max was light on story and big on action, this sequel, with a considerably larger budget($30m.) manages to be respectively lighter and bigger (and also considerably ramps up the homo-eroticism discernible in the first film). It was however a hit in the US, made a star of Gibson (whose accent has become more identifiably Australian) and caused a re-valuation of the original film.

Lacking the concision and inventiveness of the original as well as that film's contextualizing background story Mad Max 2 is a one-dimensional exercise in outsider heroics (fundamentally a re-working of a cheap seige Western). The climatic set-piece exemplifies what director George Miller does best and features some truly remarkable stunt work (it's a wonder no-one was killed) and kinetic editing as a horde of maniacal scavengers pursue Max in an oil tanker across the wide open country (it was shot around Broken Hill).

 

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