“Quantum progress from the previous Maxes”
by James Olsen
According to the scriptures of Kennedy-Miller-Hayes, in the post-apocalyptic future, in the not-too-lucky country of Australia, not only will petrol be as precious as draught Fosters, but pig shit will be used to power small outback towns. That may give you an idea of the more playful and speculative spirit behind Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
The film kicks off, literally, a number of years after the events of Mad Max II, in the sandy wastelands of Australia. To regain his possessions from the bizarre urban-cum-carnival oasis of Bartertown – where trade has become the lifestyle of its past-punk denizens – Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) has to strike an uneasy alliance with the town’s mistress, Aunty Entity (Tina Turner). For his part, Max narrowly defeats the golem-like Gladiator known as the Blaster in the Thunderdome, a diabolically designed two-man arena. Aunty Entity, however, having used Max to help her eliminate a potential threat to her rule, renegs on her part of the bargain and forces Max to spin the Wheel of Fortune, thereby determining his fate – exile into the desert. Here he is miraculously found and nursed to health by a tribe of wild children, some of whom insist that Max takes them back to civilisation. Max refuses and tries, unsuccessfully, to prevent them embarking on the foolhardy journey themselves. He ironically has to re-enter Bartertown and escape with the children, hotly pursued by Aunty Entity and her motorised marauders…
Fans of the rivetting roller coaster action and burlesque brutality of Maxes I and II are likely to be disappointed by the latest film’s more measured, thoughtful approach. The high octane thrills of the former films have been tempered by broader humour, a more elaborately designed look and, most significantly, a more expansive, involving storyline.
The sly jokes come a little thicker and quicker (and flatter) than before, playing even more on the ironic use of society’s pre-catastrophe idioms and artefacts. The production design is stunning – especially the creation of the grimy, chaotic circus of Bartertown, and the quite surreal, albeit unconvincing, sweep over the spectre city of Sydney.
Yet the most curious development is the more ambitious plot, which permits quite a slackening of tension, unheard of in Max’s earlier wanderings. The opening Bartertown segment is constructed as a particularly distinct establishing tale, at the end of which Max is dispatched to his presumed death, only for the scouting strands of the second tale to find him. During the ‘middle’ segment, the film drags conspicuously, as the tribal children relate, not without invention, their origin; Max destroys their image of him as their pre-ordained saviour (although his presence still comes across in much the same murkily mythical, not to say mystical, way as Clint Eastwood’s preacher in Pale Rider); and events are rather transparently concocted for their journey back to Bartertown and the fast and furious finale.
Mel Gibson is also allowed to breathe more life and sympathy into the character of Max, who has recovered somewhat from his heart-hardened past. Tina Turner doesn’t so much bring Aunty Entity to (larger than) life, as Aunty Entity builds on the charismatic theatricality of Tina Turner. Also worth mentioning is the neatly timed comic relief provided by Bruce Spence’s manic, eye-bulging Jedediah, and by the pint-size powerhouse of Ironbar (Angry Anderson).
If Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome doesn’t live up to the pace and power of its predecessors, its richer visual style and more substantial storyline and characterisations, are a welcome, if not wholly successful, change in emphasis. And judging from the quantum progress made from the previous Maxes, I for one can’t wait for Mad Max IV.
Starburst, November 1985
