Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

Despite the disappointment of the first Mad Max, I was ready to give the second one a chance. These movies have to be famous for a reason, right? Set in a dystopian Australia that's fleshed out better than the first film (there's a severe oil shortage which leads to a destructive world war), Mad Max 2 begins some time later. After his family is killed by a vicious gang and he blows them up with his car or whatever, Max (Mel Gibson) has become the "Road Warrior", which basically means he drives around looking for fuel and beating up bad guys. From an eccentric and initially antagonistic Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence), he hears of a well-fortified community working on an oil well, and the two venture there in the hopes of procuring a small store of gasoline. When a brutal gang threatens to destroy the desperate community, Max steps in to help them transport their oil to safety. There's lots of driving and fighting and yelling in the process.

This movie is pretty good, especially in comparison to the kind-of-boring, poorly-structured first installment. Max is a manly, leather-bound figure whose terseness enhances his mythological aspects. I liked the addition of the Gyro Captain character and the dog, though the other supporting people are kind of annoying. They all just yell at each other a lot. The villain is creepy but rarely present, and the second-in-command villain is wearing assless chaps the whole time, which disturbs his credibility but adds some laughs.

Mad Max 2 is a bit campy, it's fun, the set-up is fairly simple but not stupid, and I dig the large amount of explosions and driving. The costumes are cool and imaginative, and the desolate landscape is appropriately apocalyptic. It's just pure entertainment, really.

4/5