Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior - re:View

so rich before we start this new episode of our hit television series review I think we need to address a very important issue in regards to our Ghost Busters review a lot of people were very upset that we would imply that other youtubers are pricks even though it was a very obvious joke people are very upset at you well I am a prick I think that you need to apologize to everybody because this is serious business we can make fun of 911 all we want we can make fun of an innocent woman just trying to teach children the alphabet with the cow puppet but heaven forbid we've jokingly refer to anyone else on YouTube as a prick that is apparently where the line is drawn wait but they're pricks all those people we talked about and these other ones too yeah they're all pricks well yeah sure sure but we can't say that on camera so we'll cut this part out and he'll he's a really big prick oh that one yeah we can both agree on that absolutely absolutely pricks but one person that no one will be upset about if we call him a prick is Mel Gibson da Gibson is a prick is that ever gonna go away nope he's he's just a prick forever now a prick for life Wow like Caitlyn Jenner could like murder somebody with her car and she's a hero he didn't kill anyone with his car but he is a prick Matthew Broderick killed somebody with a car yeah why don't people talk about that more I think what I'm saying is if Mel Gibson ever wants to be accepted in society again he needs to run somebody done with a car that's good advice it's firmly not a Jew though well hello and welcome to review this time it's me and rich Evans oh my god and we're going to be discussing the road warrior aka Mad Max 2 as I think it's known everywhere on the world except for the US am i alone I'm thinking just just the road warrior alone is a cooler title it is and it was just called that because most American audiences had no idea what the [ __ ] man max was it didn't get a wide release here I didn't know what the [ __ ] Mad Max was I think I got eyes people grew up on the road warrior without youngly knowing Mad Max well they used to show it on like HBO like three times a goddamn week I should and little six-year-old me is watching and loving that movie every goddamn time my hairdo and I was in the the video store one day and nothing my uncle pointed out that you know Mad Max was there and that was that was the first one that that World War II was a sequel I had no idea and she watched the first one you said this is boring that's exactly what happened yeah the first one no well we should say right up front it's unanimous that the road warrior up until a couple years ago was universally considered the best Mad Max movie literally everyone on the planet says so yes there's not a single person that could possibly say the first or third one is the best Mad Max movie but now there's some debate about which is the best bad max movie because fury road came out and it blew everybody what he rewrote is amazing the road is amazing I wanted to talk about the road warrior because I had this I had this thought the other day I'm like well watching like a chunk of fury road I was thinking does this does this make the road warrior obsolete I rewatched it the road warrior in preparation for this discussion and the answer is yes it's a great movie but everything that the road warrior does that's great fury road doesn't better er yes still an awesome movie and that's the frustrating part cuz it's like this is great but it's not fury road here's here's what the road warrior has going forward though that I think might redeem it everything in fury road is beautiful yes fury road manages to to glorify everything that happens it's a dreamlike and every frame is like a goddamn painting blues and oranges are just used spectacularly and what the road warrior is it's very like gritty in comparison it's almost got like a realistic film it doesn't draw attention to the brutality yeah it's just brutal yeah which is weird to say because before fury road I think most people would say road warrior is pretty silly yeah all the Mad Max movies are silly but in comparison now it feels a lot more grounded and real which is a positive I also think it's if you're just looking for a straight-ahead streamlined action movie without any you know any flourishes of artistry I shouldn't say artistry but without any of the the flourishes that fury road has that's the road warrior yeah it's very straightforward it's about I also I was Winry watching it I was thinking of army of Darkness where a guy shows up in this little village it doesn't want have anything to do with anything he wants to get out of there for completely selfish reasons and then once he starts to care he becomes slightly less interesting as a character the exacts I think that happened with Ash and army of Darkness it's still a great movie but once he starts to care because it almost feels like a subversion of the typical action hero up until that point he just wants gas League cares though kind of does he comes back you know he comes back because he gets blowed up he gets dragged back I suppose he seems to have a little bit more of an investment in helping these people out though at that point because there's the scene where the guys like you don't care about anything and you're stuck you doubt living off the scraps of the old world and then there's a little bit of a shift in max at that point but he still punched him in the face it takes off in his car that's true foolishly arguably foolishly he gets to this car he drives straight through like the bad guy encampment it's like that he's a giver [ __ ] he doesn't give a [ __ ] I'd argue he assumes his cars going to outrun them because that car it's just an awesome car it is it is that is probably my favorite movie car and like I watched that movie like when I was a kid like over and over and over it every time that car gets totaled my heart broke a little bit more did it really break your heart at the beginning of fury road when it just gets busted up immediately yes it did well for anyone that maybe has seen fury road and has not seen the road warrior we kind of skipped over what the actual movie is about what is the plot of the road warrior doesn't take long to explain it's about being dead no no here i hear me out hear me out I actually have a theory on this the Mad Max trilogy mmm the first one's about dying sure civilization there's civilization in the first one but it's clearly on the decline yes Mad Max is he's trying to be a cop he's trying to have the family life but the decline eventually it needs to almaty he has the fall at the end so first one dying the road warrior is all about [ __ ] wallowing in misery mm-hmm like there are there are greens in the first movie the second one there's a real good reason for it because contrary to popular belief it's not a nuclear apocalypse right it's just an oil crisis there's no oil in society fell apart because of that but the entire world is like a deserted desert wasteland for a particularly good reason other than just the matically it works and and max doesn't care about anything but himself most of the movie and the world is just completely brutal and heartless and humanity has just evolved into savage animals yeah save it I'm just here for the gasoline which is another theme that is kind of in there you have the feral kid oh yeah who's like a dog boy and then you get to the third one Beyond Thunderdome and things are things are getting better some kind of civilization is forming out of the decayed body and Max has some kind of redemption and he regains some humanity so there's a there's like an arc through all three films thematically and with Max's character sure and then how does fury road fit into that it's different beast it's just a completely different though yeah yeah one thing I like more than fury road is that the the narrator is not max all it remains a memories I remember a time of chaos ruin dreams this wasted land but most of all I remember the road warrior max has a voiceover at the beginning a fury road and I like that he is it's why I don't like the first Mad Max quite as much as that I like max is sort of this weird folk hero that just stories about it about him has been kind of passed down yeah and he cuz that's another thing people complain about fury road like Oh max isn't even lead it's all about fury euro so that's that's how it was done maybe have you seen another Mad Max and that's the Mad Max the first movie it's almost like Batman Begins where it's like we're seeing everything you know being set up we're seeing how he becomes the character he becomes but that's not nearly as interesting as the Dark Knight you know get that [ __ ] out of the way he works better as this like folk hero yeah yeah as I kind of kind of character rather than a human being I'm like Mac max himself you're talking about his character I mean he's he's just an interesting loner drifter that you can view this fucked-up world from right yeah he's your vessel into this world the star of the movie is the world more so than it is max he's how you how you get to that place how you get to this town full of people that have gas and well the people the [ __ ] up bikers oh sure that appeared in like every movie after that yeah the road war are not thrown I guess you could say Mad Max too but also the first two Mad Max movies along with escape for me you're responsible for so many italian ripoffs we watched one on best of the worst raters of Atlanta's but there's so many more [ __ ] weird science has Mad Max bikers at it yeah one of the actual Vernon Wells one of the actual guys I found that out this afternoon is like oh my god that is the same guy the same guy it's the the red way which was pretty sure his name is well the character's name yeah I do like and it's never really commented on but that character seems to have his own like twink S&M boyfriend it's not really commented on but that's pretty progressive for the early eighties free radical for a movie made of that time because he looks really upset when that little twink guy gets the the boomerang in the face his his his S&M buddy that's on the motorcycle behind him throughout the whole film until that point yeah yeah behind him on his ass loose chaps it clearly if they want women in this universe they just they just grab them you know it makes it work - it's not it's not done as an excuse to speak Tignes into the movie right it's just it's very key like disturbingly casually done Mexico he's just he kind of just sees it through a periscope and it's kind of taking place in like the bottom left-hand corner yeah right it doesn't affect him to the point where when max goes down there the girls have been killed the guy is leaning up against the car that was also attacked he's like thank you for saving us thank you that Max is just like I just want some [ __ ] games man like that's the world of this movie it hammers home how how far the world has fallen in the universe of Mad Max yeah I am gravely disappointed again JD unleash my total I learned humongous we have anything to say about Lord humungus I learned humongous is great visually uh in Moton Joe is a much more interesting villain yes that's what I would say about road warrior is it's it's very like I said very straight forward as far as an action movie these are the bad guys these are the good guys and there's not a whole lot more layers to that I do like how he's fairly well spoken though I mean he look out yeah he looks like this [ __ ] up bodybuilding SNM kind of psychopath yeah but he's he's fairly articulate sigh I beg you to just walk away and this can all be put aside it's not like we're going to kill all of you which is he's well spoken about what he wants he just wants the gas yeah except for maybe the first Mad Max they all have a slight sort of fairytale in the post apocalypse feel to them mhm and fury road has it the most with like the you know the evil leader up on his castle and all the peasants down below but this one gets you into that world to that fairytale feel with the the voiceover like we met this man once and and then we never saw him again and all that stuff but this one yeah it's it feels grounded but it still has those fairytale aspects to it yeah yeah I said what's that ending chase scene and road warrior was that how long was it before that scene was topped as far as just scale if it wasn't topped until if you rewrote this is that is that what we're gonna say well fury road is is because people it's funny people used to describe the road warrior it's just one long chase and it really isn't there's a lot of build-up to it there's a whole lot and there's a couple action scenes early on but there's a lot of just establishing the world and establishing the situation fury road is almost non-stop one long chase it's yes it's really clearly what George Miller has always had in his mind that he wanted to do and before before fury road the closest he got I think was the road warrior it's it's it's the blueprint because you can tell he wanted that wordless storytelling in a road warrior max has I believe it's sixteen lines in the whole film is that it it's only I think people complained about with euro like he's it's called Mad Max but Mad Max never talks I've never seen a Mad Max movie before all this all the people in fear who came out who had never seen a Mad Max film complaining that fury road wasn't about Max is the strangest [ __ ] thing yeah um they gotta find something to complain about it just gets involved in somebody else's problem now exactly like what happens in the road warrior he doesn't have any personal stakes in the film exactly like what happens in the road warrior it's a hard movie to talk about without just saying everything is awesome I like it there in the end chase when there's the two guys that are strapped to the front of the cars and they have the burlap sacks over their heads that fly up just in time for them to see how they're going to die that's immediately their head squash like like melons and it's also got the most impressive stunts in the world which was a complete nearly fatal accident it was the crash and the guy though the stunt man he was just supposed to fly off frame but instead his feet get hooked on like the top of the car something and he does this this pinwheel and I heard he nearly died yeah he broke his leg in like eight places or something really [ __ ] up yeah you see in the movie and you can't plan that like I can't imagine anyone was expecting that to happen they left it in but why the [ __ ] wouldn't do is the feral kid great or annoying or both both okay both it can be both III love the idea that just the generation that's growing up after the apocalypse are basically just savage animals yeah that's that's kind of a fun detail his miss barking does get a little bit obnoxious barking it's annoying but it's a useful character like a lot of movies with little kids in them the kids are obnoxious and they just don't serve any purpose but the kid he's sneaking through little tunnels and cutting off fingers and it's great have you have you heard people theorizing that that kid is max in the new movie in fury road I think I heard something about that I don't care okay I don't I don't give much credit to it no what would be the point and having to be the feral kid other than just as a fan theory well it gets to keep it in continuity none of those movies care about continuity they have the the gyroplane pilot in Beyond Thunderdome is a completely different character continuity does not matter in these movies they're connected thematically and the fact that max is played by Mel Gibson and that's pretty much a Bruce Spence who I heard when he filmed the the road warrior had just gotten out of the hospital which is partly why he's so [ __ ] thin oh really yeah yeah supposedly he could barely like jump out of the sand did he have trouble lifting up the snakes we had to throw them from his general plane roughly that's another like weird little detail that's like all the weirdness in these movies but yeah gyroplane he's just throwing snakes down on people effective it would be it worked really well I'd be freaked out of somebody threw a snake on me from the sky I think there would be a moment of confusion first like what the [ __ ] my question about that ending when the tanker falls over and the sand starts pouring out and you realize that you know the gas was never in there to begin with max kind of hasn't looked like he didn't know about that I don't think he does which is great that our hero was completely oblivious to the plan that wasn't even his idea the entire time they directly stated but he has that look like yeah like oh well they didn't trust him it's it's almost a double cross yeah no the casualness to which which our good guys die at the end of that film yeah almost immediately they start dying even he like like the the warrior woman I mean it's not a glorious death no she doesn't go out like I'm gonna take you with me it's just like they explode and take out bad guys with her she just gets shot and slumps over yeah and for like the next five minutes her body's just hanging off the back of the truck and that's something and I guess that's a positive over fury road too is that everything's a little more heightened fury road everything's a little more dramatic cinematically and I like the bluntness of everything in in road warriors yeah like the engineer he just he's falls off the back of the truck and get sucked under a wheel somewhere in the back of the frame yeah so if you had to pick one as far as a better movie road warrior or furia I have to go fury road it's such a shame isn't it like I mean it's not it's like an embarrassment of riches but the idea that it's like as awesome as the road warrior is fury road boom takes everything up a few more a few notches when I was young road warrior was like one of my all-time favorites that was that was right up there and I have to say it's it's it's kind of been replaced at Lee's buried a bit yeah under fury road that's a good thing ultimately because three roads a relatively recent movie and that means the Hollywood can still make a film I love that's true which up until fury road came out I thought that was something that was never going to happen again yeah fury road is like a little miracle the fact that I mean especially when you know about the history of it and how much trouble he had getting it made and then it finally comes out and he's George Miller's in like a 70s and he made an action movie that puts you know people half his age to shame thank you thank you George Miller thank you George Miller I know you've talked about making another one you don't have to you really don't have enriched my life enough as originally said he's not going to there's talk of doing like a standalone furiosa movie and I don't think that's happening now I don't know yeah you can just you can retire you can be like max at the end of road warrior and we never saw him again I don't care with that I can walk off into the sunset

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 1,339,110

Keywords: redlettermedia, red letter media, red, letter, media, half in the bag, plinkett, best of the worst, review, re:view, mad max, mad max 2, road warrior, mel gibson, george miller, fury road, tom hardy

Id: bYLk6nMB23o

Length: 22min 39sec (1359 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 22 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/OxvFer0cdak]

I love how one thing follows another in Mad Max 2, how everything flows through to that ending. That they didn't trust him is brilliant.

[u/NicCage4life]

What a bunch of pricks.

[u/NuclearChickadee]

I love how George Miller reuses actors for unrelated characters, first the gyro-copter pilot showing up in 2 movies as two separate people, then the actor who played Toecutter in the first movie came back to play Immortan Joe in Fury Road

[u/Loh_ber]

Watching Road Warrior and Fury Road back to back is a great easter egg experience. Fury Road by itself has some very clever world building that you might not catch in the first viewing, but then you see its all there (like the giant mirror the cities use for communication). Then you have all the other little elements from Road Warrior just passing by the scenes in Fury Road, no glorification like Jurassic World, just a glimpse in the hands of some character or around the vehicles.

I'm also frustrated I never realized Max was betrayed in Road Warrior. The escalation of action was so great I was just glad it was over for him, thought it was his plan all along.

The Jay analogy that those movies are a highly disguised fantasy story works so well, the Road Warrior fortress is basically a castle in a siege and Max is a lost knight roaming around the world, all the citizens are in white dresses and armor like paladins and dwarfs as gnomes. The evil castle and the princesses in Fury Road...

[u/STinG666]

I'm disappointed in Rich. He was doing such a great job connecting the films through the thematic and world-building arc they have and when Jay prompted "How about Fury Road?", Rich just opts out.

I honestly think Fury Road again develops upon the gradual rebirth of civilization by having them now adopt diplomacy and religion into their lives - the War Boys, the deification of Immortan Joe, the relations between the Citadel, Gas Town, the Bullet Farm, and all the other tribes we witness.

I also think the latter three films adopt both a stance of the ideas of mythology (there's a reason The Road Warrior has no character names except for Max - I don't even think we hear him regarded by that name - and is narrated by an elder Feral Boy... it's now a story rooted in memory and brought larger than life; Fury Road visually adopts the grandeur of mythology instead; Beyond Thunderdome has its latter half revolve around the realization of legend) AND of the greater strength of the community over the individual (Max always shows up by himself and jaded, his actions outrageous and insistent on maintaining his isolation, but he only ever survives and wins the battle through collective action with his allies and there is little doubt they'd be dead without this compromise).

[u/[deleted]]

One thing bothered me about this review.

When he says there was no indication of any war or anything other than running out of oil. It's right in the Gyro captains monologue.

"For reasons long forgot, two mighty warrior tribes went to war, and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all."

"Their leaders talked, and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche."

Yes I've seen road warrior too many times.

[u/pero256]

The action sequences and the explosions were the best part of the movie for me. I hate how action scenes these days have so many cuts and are CGI filled. I somehow feel directors these days are lazy to even build a proper set for a movie. They'd rather do the entire movie in front of a green scene than try to erect a set and have proper props. George Miller really stands out in that aspect. Even for Fury Road, they went to some desert in Namibia and tried to have minimum CGI.

Special mention to the ending scene where they explode the oil refinery. It seems so good to see such a huge explosion just for the movie.

[u/[deleted]]

I LOVE how they touched on certain common criticisms of Fury Road (Max not being the main character, or talking much, etc.) and how they make no sense because that's exactly what Mad Max is supposed to be. I see these complaints all the time, when they're some of the defining aspects of the series.

Max is only really the main character in the first film, after that he's a drifter who stumbles into other people's stories that would happen without them. But he ends up helping them in some way then moving on. He's not supposed to be the main character, he's a "vessel" (as they said in the video) that gives you a view of the post apocalyptic world.

[u/[deleted]]

I like road warrior much better than fury road.