Revisit: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

A Warner Brothers picture 1985

Directed by:
George Miller
George Ogilvie

Writing Credits:
Terry Hayes &
George Miller


Mad Max (Mel Gibson) is a former cop who finds himself in a post-apocolyptic desert town called Bartertown. He is hired by the leader of the city to fight in a gladiator like arena called Thunderdome, so he can kill Auntie's (Tina Turner) rival Master Mlaster. Later banished, Max finds a group of children that survived a plane crash during the war. Some of the children leave to find their fabled tomorrowmorrow land, so Mad Max has to save them from the desert and from Auntie's Bartertown.



Absurdity abounds in this third installment in Mel Gibson's post-apocalyptic Mad Max series. The Thunderdome sequence is cool as hell, and the car chases are sweet, but this thing starts sucking whenever it tries to go "Beyond Thunderdome". Coherence and logic are not one of the film's friends. And another thing - why do women find Mel Gibson attractive? The man grunts and groans his way through this flick looking like the missing link. I mean, I guess if you like illiterate drunk Australian douchebags you'd find him attractive. But at least its got some strange ideas (Tina Turner as the evil queen?!) and funny moments (Mel Gibson almost kills a retard!). They don't really make ridiculous action flicks like this anymore - insincere and totally insane - so the humor and spunk are definitely something to cherish.