It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Max

I have bought I bunch of video games and movies I really need to get to at some point. In an effort to both cure my lack of not seeing a lot of movies(at the very least), I have been watching movies in my spare time. So, because of that, I have caught up with all of the Mad Max movies.  I had seen bits of some of them before, but never the whole thing. I also had heard some of the movies were bad.

I'll start with the first one, Mad Max. The only part of this movie that felt truly dated to me was the title font. It is a bit of a slow burn of a movie that is more about the atmosphere than story.The movie felt something like a day in the life of our hero Max, and it didn't feel apocalyptic as the other movies would become. It's the only movie where I actually feel like max is a crazy person pushed to the brink. You really feel the desperation of the characters, or at least I did.

Road Warrior is next( or mad max 2 if you're outside the US). This is where most people were introduced to the character and it shows. This is the movie where you have everyone wearing what looks like left-over clothes and sports equipment. I believe that this movie had the most memorable hero characters. The helicopter pilot was the most memorable and fun character to me. The leader of the "good guys" tribe was also done well along with the feral kid. The villains were a little flat and 1-deminsional to me, but the designs of the bad guys were fun and threatening. The story and ending were well written and the ending was great.

That leads us into Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. This one I feel is still a good movie, but it is the one that I feel is the black sheep of the Mad Max movies. It's not as dark as the other Mad max movies were. The first two and the most recent one were not afraid to have nudity in their movies and show blood and disfigurement. This one is much more"family friendly"  in tone and at times feels a little preachy, and downright silly. I still enjoyed it, but it honestly would have worked better as it's own movie rather than using the Mad Max name. The ending of the villain's arc, while being more interesting characters than previous villains, was bad and confusing. The movie's ending felt like it went on for a little too long too, trying to recapture the feeling of the second movie without really understanding why it worked.

© Warner Bros. Pictures
Last we have the newest one Mad Max: Fury Road. The characters in this one fell a bit more like a mixing of what everyone liked from all the previous movies. The dark gritty realism of the first, the second movie's sense of style, and the third movie's silliness and world building. This movie is the most actiony action movie to ever have moments of action.It is smart, it is a thrill, and It's one of the best movies I've seen in a while.


I think that all the movies had a certain charm to them. None of them really dipped hard into horrible movie territory for me. Most of them are movie classics.They all deserve at least one watch. It's a car ride I wouldn't mind taking again.

Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.