Film Review: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

It is quite rare for a good film, and even rarer for a great film, to have sequel better than itself. When such extraordinary things happen, it is usually the third film in the series that ultimately ends as a disappointment. This happened, in one way or the other, with Godfather and original Star Wars trilogy. The same thing happened to the original series of film about Mad Max. The first one, 1979 low budget futuristic revenge film starring then unknown Mel Gibson, was followed two years later with Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, which became one of the best 1980s film and undisputed classic of post-apocalyptic genre. In 1985 the third film, Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome was the most ambitious, expensive and spectacular, but it turned out to be disappointment even for fans who haven’t been in too much awe with previous two.

Like in the previous film, protagonist, former policeman and driver Max Rockatansky (played by Mel Gibson) appears in the beginning as drifter trying to survive in harsh and unforgiving world of Australian desert many years after the wars and economic collapse have destroyed civilisation. His belongings are stolen by Jedidiah (played by Bruce Spence), scavenger who had built a plane for such purposes. Max survives and trails him to Bartertown, settlement that offers people some sort of order and prosperity under the rule of its intelligent but ruthless founder Aunty Entity (played by Tina Turner). She is quite impressed by newcomers’ survival and combat skills and offers him car, supplies and precious fuel in exchange for helping her with a serious problem. The control over town is actually divided between Aunty and Master (played by Angelo Rossito), brilliant but unstable dwarfish engineer who controls underground pig farm which produces methane, the town’s sole source of energy. Master is protected by huge masked bodyguard Blaster (played by Paul Larsson), so Aunty wants Max to challenge Blaster to the duel in Thunderdome, town’s improvised gladiatorial arena where all disputes are traditionally solved. Max defeats Blaster, but refusing to kill him angers Aunty who sentences Max to exile into desert and almost certain death. Max is there found by the tribe of children and teenagers living in desert oasis, survivors of the plane crash that had built cargo cult around downed jet and its pilot who may years ago went to find rescue. They are all convinced that Max is the pilot. He does all in his power to prove them wrong but circumstances force him to look for group of tribal children and ultimately find his way back to Bartertown.

George Miller, director of first two films, was deeply affected by the death of his friend and producer Byron Kennedy, who had died before the production of this film. This, among other things, led him to ask George Ogilvie to co-direct the film. Although this change is sometimes offered as an explanation for disappointing result of third Mad Max film, it would be unfair to say that both men didn’t do their jobs properly or that Miller didn’t show creativity during production. This is best seen in the beginning when Bartertown and Underworld feature incredibly inventive production design and offer rather convincing vision how some sort of new civilisation would start to emerge on the ruins of the previous one. Miller and his co-writer Terry Hayes also did an interesting job with tribal children’s dialogue, offering intriguing speculations how would abandoned children, lacking education and adults’ supervision and role models, develop their own speech. Cinematography by Dean Semler, who did The Road Warrior is very effective and put various desert locations to good use. Nothing, however, matches the scene in Thunderdome where showdown between Max and Blaster provides one of the most inventive and exciting action scenes in history of 1980s cinema.

All that is, however, compromised with other, less fortunate, creative decisions dictated mostly by desire to make third Mad Max film as commercial as possible and tailored primarily for US audience. The most obvious is PG-13, new censorship rating brought in order for Beyond Thunderdome to compete with Spielberg’s family-friendly blockbusters on 1985 summer box-office. This meant not only that the violence must be toned down, but also that the juvenile characters and subplots must be introduced to Mad Max’s harsh world. This results in Beyond Thunderdome looking as two films stitched into one – first part, which takes place in Bordertown, and actually looks like proper Mad Max film and the second part, which features story inspired by Lord of the Flies which could have worked as standalone film without Max or even outside post-apocalyptic context. Another is appearance of Tina Turner in the role of chief villain. American Rock star who was at the height of her popularity does more than decent job in her rare acting performance, portraying the character which is not only very intelligent, but rather iconic in her formidable appearance. For producers this wasn’t enough, and Turner also performs two songs in the films – “One of the Living” in the opening titles and “We Don’t Need Another Hero”, which became one of the greatest hits of the time. The first one appearing at the beginning instead of conventional soundtrack by Brian May clearly signals audience that they are watching more commercial and Hollywodised version of Mad Max. Maurice Jarre, who has replaced May as soundtrack composer, at times gives too much homage to his work in Lawrence of Arabia, making Beyond Thunderdome even sound less like proper Mad Max. But even worse is casting of Bruce Spence, actor who had done such tremendous job as iconic Gyro Captain in Road Warrior as another pilot. New character, although shares the aviation skills with Gyro Captain, looks one-dimensional in comparison and Beyond Thunderdome never bothers to tell whether the two are the same character or whether Gyro Captain had twin brother. Any way, this points to rather sloppy screenwriting which, unsurprisingly, produced the worst film of the trilogy. Beyond Thunderdome, despite this flaws, offers enough of Miller’s skilful direction and Gibson’s good performance, well-matched by diverse character actors’ cast, to provide entertainment to less demanding fans of post-apocalyptic action and those sufficiently nostalgic towards 1980s.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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