Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome Review

ah hello will my web I'm doing shadow the internet personality the best hair and with Mad Max two out of the way there should be no reason I have to stop and argue back and forth as to whether or not something is or isn't post-apocalyptic in this series except for the fact that we're talking about Mad Max and evidently there are varying levels of Apocalypse according to my sources the initial war wasn't World War three no no no the war before Mad Max was a Persian Gulf War that's what killed the world supply of oil thus resulting in apocalypse one and then the events of Mad Max then evidently things just got shitty er in society completely collapses after apocalypse to comes Mad Max 2 and guess what happens World War 3 nukes drop only after Mad Max 2 takes place resulting in apocalypse 3 and then Mad Max 3 and this right I'm wondering if there was an alien invasion or asteroid impact that only happens after this movie in any case this week we're looking at Mad Max 3 Beyond Thunderdome the first in the series to be partially funded with American money Beyond Thunderdome is also unique in the series for several other reasons a prominent role played by Tina Turner who is not Australian and of course the fact that it was never supposed to be a Mad Max movie in the first place that was a movie people working on that his basic plotline worked out and then they said a mysterious man comes in from the wasteland someone else was like why not make it Mad Max and no one at the table thought to say because it was supposed to end with Mad Max 2 not that I'm complaining I loved Mad Max 2 obviously and I'm happy to see another movie that I can call post-apocalyptic for 20 minutes before finding out yet again the apocalypse hasn't really happened yet no matter how much it looks like it did point is it takes place 15 years or so since the events of Mad Max 2 and despite that whole World War 3 problem society isn't crumbling anymore matter of fact it's actually starting arms back giving us a look at a new civilization after the destruction of the old' what kind of civilization one with a Thunderdome and things beyond it so let's take a look at Mad Max 3 Beyond Thunderdome and get into the specifics before I get too far I have to mention the opening credits like the last two movies it's white text on a black background but there is a distinct difference this time the soundtrack I got Tina Turner on board for more than just our on-screen presence and it is a bit jarring next to the comparatively reserved soundtracks of the last two films but hey a movie came out in 1985 and embraces the [ __ ] out of that the vocals disappear though once the movie starts proper we see the wasteland is still a wasteland with a lone traveler on a lonesome road but then the coachman is not oversea by Swift airplane to the head piloted by did it I are played by Bruce Spence and his son played by Adam Cockburn yes Cockburn anyway since Jedediah is Bruce Spence and Bruce Spence was a gyro captain in the last movie does that mean the gyro captain was Jedediah don't think so it's hard to say for sure as this takes place years after Mad Max 2 and the same actor plays a character who flies an aircraft and praise on travelers but there's one big problem when it comes to assuming Bruce is playing the same character in this movie he just stole that wagon and those camels from Mad Max and you can argue that this happened really fast and you couldn't really make each other out too well and he didn't know it was max but then you have the problem later when they're face to face with each other and they still don't seem to recognize each other luckily enough for max though he's out his camels his wagon and pretty much all his worldly possessions aren't strapped to his ass directly he still just so happen to be within walking distance to a thriving settlement butter town it's just what it sounds like a bustling trading post out in the middle the wasteland where folks buy and sell everything they can exotic and mundane don't you understand this is water you can't be without it a little wall well and you make too many fallout references during a Mad Max review it can come out a little tacky especially considering everyone knows that fallout was heavily influenced by the Mad Max series heading to the building where pretty much everyone must visit the brothel max runs into the collector played by Frank ring have been her fame as Max doesn't have any items to trade his incessant demands for information fall on deaf ears I got skills I can trade then sorry of a brothel oh and we'll just have to put my skills to the test right here by that I mean his skills at combat skillfully holding the man up while holding the guards off thing is the display of his fighting prowess actually manages to unlock more dialogue options have you got something to trade after all keep talking 24 hours of your life return you'll get back what was stolen promising things that he can not reliably make a return on he must have been a member of the Australian government especially considering while moving from point A to point B they find Max's camels but ignore him pointing that out instead to bring him to the actual governmental figure of Bartertown aunty played by Tina Turner but how the world turns one day [ __ ] of the walk next to feather dust play something Ton Ton something tragic dr. doc you always pick that one auntie is interested in the alleged skills max has and tests him with an offering of fruit which explodes into a well choreographed action sequence funny thing before they send you on a suicide mission the first thing they do is try to kill you congratulations you're the first to survive the audition you know that just makes me think that the voice would play out very differently if they had Tina Turner as a judge on that show his prize for a living long enough to hear his job is is oh yeah what will they tell him that they need him specifically because he's an outsider and that his target must be killed but his only chance to do so will be in a fair fight with none of his weapons to the death to explain the plot further they expose it that beneath the streets of Bartertown lies a massive pig farm with a pig's are grown not for their meat but for their excrement to fuel the new world the life the motors of the vehicles all run by a high-powered gas called methane methane comes from pig [ __ ] yeah but not exclusively methane comes from a lot of sources and is produced by pretty much every animal on earth yes methane does come from pig ship up by saying methane comes from big [ __ ] you are leaving a lot of [ __ ] out it's in the underworld that his target can be found though blaster who was written by master making master blaster not to be confused with a totally original owned by Sunsoft title blaster master in any case Blaster is the big guy played by Paul Larson and masters played by Angela rosette Oh auntie wants to keep master around but they want max to kill the big daddy looking [ __ ] in order to learn what he can about his quarry max takes a job in the [ __ ] mines where he meets Robert grub playing the enigmatic pig killer how long you in for Bagon live for killing a pig does make you wonder what the sentences are for other crimes Terence why would you call me a pig [ __ ] well let's see first of all you [ __ ] pigs oh yeah yeah Who am I kidding in this world I probably gets the employee of the month back seems to think he might be able to find another way to impress a higher up so as he finds them tinkering around trying to disarm a bomb on one of the cars they brought in that's my vehicle how much no trade do he he was on a camel drawn wagon earlier though right I don't think it had a gas tank or a booby trap on it and I don't know but his card with the gas tank and the booby trap was blown up in the last movie after a little more negotiations it's decided that max is going to help and in return they won't shut his head up his own ass though for it being his own car and knowing what he's doing max still seems to suck at his job you think the big red light and screeching alarm would mean that he royally [ __ ] up but well honestly I don't know whether or not he did they don't really say though it doesn't make sense to me that you would design a system with a big flashing red light and screeching alarm when things are perfectly fine perhaps it gives us a clue establecer us one weakness but the clues not enough to go on so max goes for the confirmation and spends even longer torturing blaster with a whistle confirm that high-pitched noises bother blaster and like nobody holds him on this it's like they don't even notice if that was a dog whistle what maybe that would make sense cuz no one else could hear it but we did I don't know maybe the Foley guys [ __ ] up again now that he knows all he needs to in order to kill blaster he returns to Auntie and accepts her quest just need the details on that now okay you said a fair fight what do you mean by that as provided by the law and Adele well I had a feeling you'd be killing the guy sometime during this movie or could you get a little more specific oh they mean the arena or Colosseum whatever words can easily describe this structure forget it it's a Thunderdome now thing is Thunderdome isn't some gladiatorial exhibition it's more like Monday night rehabilitation as the way in which legal disputes are settled to that end max forces a confrontation with Master Blaster declaring their vehicle his obviously they disagree and are ready to kill him but lo and behold the law and Auntie step in to hear the plight of the people wait what oh you know the law two men enter one man leaves what if your gender-fluid underworld the pitting of blaster vs max comes in short order with all the fanfare you would expect also some you wouldn't as they seem to make a habit of explaining the history behind Thunderdome before every match it's explained that the old civilization was destroyed by war but conflicts between people need violent permanent resolution to prevent that to that end Thunderdome exists to settle all disputes between individuals where the survivor is considered to be the one in the right two men enter one man leaves not exactly a foreign concept from a dystopian future of science fiction I mean people do remember the idea of gentlemen duels now they no need to wait any longer so they strap the contestants in literally and I was not expecting that but evidently thought of them is a fight to the death while suspended with big-ass rubber bands I'm not sure exactly why is it doesn't lend itself to displace of acrobatic ability nearly as often as it seems to devolve into an impossible to choreograph slap fight fortunately while max was restricted from bringing in any of his own weapons Thunderdome has scored a few provided for the combatants so long as they can reach them such as a [ __ ] chainsaw what'd you expect max gas ain't cheap you know at least with the different weapons and the fighters breaking free of their elastic bindings the combat does remain quite varied over the course of the fight as we could expect max eventually managed to get ahold of his whistle and blowing it incapacitates blasted long enough to beat the ever-loving [ __ ] out of him with a sledgehammer knocking his protective helmet clear off he goes in for the kill but just can't bear to strike him down because he's stupid no not blaster max I mean the man was just about to rip you and a half a minute ago I don't care what condition he has yeah this wasn't part of the deal yeah was challenge blaster kill him get your stuff back this detail wasn't brought up because it was inconsequential to that but we're supposed to feel sorry for blaster now as master explains why he's the real victim here and and he can stuff it if she expects him to continue helping her farm methane that's a kind of kicks that hold need to keep this under wraps part in the ass doesn't it her whole plot to keep this deal and her involvement secret make no [ __ ] sense when you consider she drops down into Thunderdome to yell at everyone what she says is law anyway so [ __ ] it besides they have a new criminal in their midst max we had a deal bust a deal face four-wheel you better be careful writing your laws to Reyn might get some crossed wires one day when someone hears step on a crack break your mother's back point is by face the wheel they are referring to the wheel of fortune mana to determine a sentence considering this could land on a full pardon it doesn't seem to be the best means to punish criminals but I digress max gets his spin and his fate is the gulag or a gulag or just gulag I'm not entirely sure because what they [ __ ] do to him has nothing to do with the word gulag the word is an acronym for a forced labor camp from Soviet Russia but Max's faith isn't forced labor or internment in any way shape or form they time to a horse backwards and blinded and have him driven out into the wasteland to die exactly like a gulag yep fortunately max is a handy dandy monkey with superhuman stamina able to drag a water skim through the desert tracking him down very quickly and keeping him alive max I know you're thirsty but when you have a ridiculously limited water supply it helps if you make sure that the water actually goes into your mouth even with the water skin though max is pretty much [ __ ] wandering through the wasteland with no clear objective hoping to find something to keep him going considering it's the desert that's easier said than done and he collapses from exhaustion but hold on a minute what's this a mysterious figure has managed to find max and drags him back to her settlement this will be Savannah Nix played by Helen bidet she's a member of a tribe of children surviving in an isolated oasis and believes max to be a certain someone it's him mind you team captain milk and I smell gifts and walkers played by Chuck Norris as Max is a bit predisposed to offer a rebuttal to this for the moment instead we get to know the tribe who call themselves the waiting ones as they nurse him back to health of course once he finally comes to this goes about as well as you'd expect I take that back actually goes a bit better than max screaming cursing and shooting kids it's a more tongue-in-cheek slapstick kind of situation where the old man rushes around screaming at the strange children and their elaborate tree houses fortunately things do calm down and they manage to get somewhere in the Q&A section who do you think I am Robin Williams of course obviously explaining where the hell the tribe came from and who in the [ __ ] Captain Walker's requires a [ __ ] ton more exposition but fortunately the waiting ones prepared for that too using cave paintings and a television shaped staff Savannah gives a PowerPoint presentation about how the old world was destroyed in the apocalypse and one jet of people escaping the cities crashed here one of those crashes were good about a people live though so not as bad as it could have been the adults got together to search the wasteland for safety or the like and left the kids at the Oasis with the order to wait for one of them to return after many years they found max so that's close enough he's Captain Walker and now he can lead them to the city of the future which they call tomorrow-morrow land hearing this max does what he does best and crushes their spirits and there's no Tomorrowland and I ain't Captain Walker because telling people who devoted their entire lives to this story that everything they know is wrong and there is no hope nor any reason to hope ever always and so well he continues to disappoint them not explaining why the crash jet just can't fly anymore but just walking away when they beg him to take them to tomorrow-morrow land this means that they're happy peaceful tribe can start breaking down as Savannah believes tomorrow-morrow land must be out there and will go forth alone to find it if she has to the Smacks must use his expert knowledge and diplomacy to convince her not to a solid argument to be sure problem is he can't punch everyone in the face at all hours of the day so eventually a few slip through the cracks and rush out into the hellish wasteland got handed to max though he is trying to be a decent guy here and heads out to rescue them he managed to find that in time mostly the sand did kind of sort of swallow one of the kids might regret hitting that snooze button now oh well now that they're together he can try to leave them this safety or danger danger sounds more fun no Baba tan it's our only chance our only chance for a great deal by two camels and get all a big [ __ ] you can carry rather max believes he can sneak in and steal a vehicle for them to escape in he intends to do this by infiltrating underworld but of course keeping track of a dozen kids in a precarious situation isn't exactly a Veysel task while there though it's possible they might rescue master from his predicament and royally [ __ ] over butter town's future prospects in the process oh this is easier said than done but by the end of it they managed to steal a train yeah there there was a train in the underworld and it's still attached to train tracks and no it wasn't used for trade or transport or anything like that it was a load-bearing train now [ __ ] it the point is this finally gives us an excuse to have a vehicular action scene one we can see too as the Sun came up right when I escaped convenient that one thing to note about this action scene is as big it is there is a distinct lack of fatalities that combined with the fact that we here [ __ ] for the first and only time in this movie when they were infiltrating underworld it makes it feel a lot more obvious of this movies only got out pg-13 rating the action can still be entertaining me wrong but it's not visceral or dangerous looking so much as slapstick so if you were ever curious as to how well Mad Max would translate to a Saturday morning cartoon show Beyond Thunderdome is a pretty good example of that but they must suddenly stop the train because an eight-year-old is holding them up then seeing the pursuers runs like hell providing them the information they need to find the secret passageway this reintroduces Bruce to the movie all of a sudden and this happens you mean you it's your lucky day it is you got a plane I have like I said they talk to each other like they have no [ __ ] clue who each other are so a same actor but highly unlikely to be the same character then again maybe the gyro captain had relatives I don't know fortunately it takes very little to convince the man to help Max and the kids the skateboarder towns angry mob as they all load into his plane and dump all the guy's belongings to reduce the weight as much as possible not saying there isn't another problem between them and ash he's not enough runway it will be you can also turn the plane around and just go off the cliff a matter of fact if you had done that in the first place instead of stopping and turning around you probably would have been better off but yeah you will need some speed but you'll be getting it so yeah it'll probably work max has a better plan though take the spare car and drive in front of the plane drastically lowering its maximum speed in order to play chicken with the oncoming cars it doesn't actually work as the first one just crashes right into him but then the plane takes off meaning they had plenty of runway space so they could have easily done it that earlier the point is the kids escape to the skies with the Bruce and master while Max is left on the ground where auntie can do what she pleases to him well made we appear raggedy man which is evidently nothing yeah he destroyed your town now you're just gonna be a random [ __ ] in the waist and there's absolutely no reason anyone would give you any kind of respect at all at this point but why kill him I'm Issa you it'll make fury road a hell of a lot harder to explain either way happy ending with the help of the airplane the kids make it all the way to Sydney which despite being nuked is still in pretty good shape with master's help they actually managed to power the city again and the movie ends on them staying in Sydney intent on making it their tomorrow-morrow land themselves and I think they went back and got the other kids from the Oasis I think and I didn't show that but I mean they got there tomorrow moral and what they didn't go back maybe a kind of shitty thing to do of course there there was a lot of [ __ ] in this moving beyond the Thunderdome is not really a bad movie but I think it's pretty easy to see why it seems there to be a bad Mad Max movie the most obvious thing is the pg-13 rating neutering the action scenes and the direction pushing for more comedy making the whole thing lose a lot of the serious tone of the last two entries secondly though is the fact that there is a dreadfully small amount of vehicular action this time around most of the story revolves around new civilisations after the end of civilization and in that regard it is very interesting especially as a fan of science fiction I like the angles we get to see in this film with Bartertown being a traditional trade hub style city built on a new energy source and the waiting one's showing people reverting to a more tribal state I especially like the dialect of the weighty ones as being isolated for most others for pretty much the whole lies for those present their language naturally evolved along its own course the plot itself though can be a little wonky with the political espionage of butter town leading into the unrelated situation with the weighting ones and then the overlapping of the two which honestly felt pretty forced leading into the only vehicle action in this movie and Max being left alive because aunty is suddenly ice the original plans of this movie was the Lord of the Flies esque plot with the waiting ones where a wandering man finds the tribe of children and someone suggested that man be mad max' and the rest of the movie kind of grew out of there so that explains it but it doesn't make it flow any better overall Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is entertaining and does a good job of building a world for us to lose ourselves and problem is when they start doing Head bunking gags it's just a big reminder hey you're watching a movie now and once the plots intermingle things stop making sense in a hurry but taking everything into account I still feel that the film comes in at a solid 3 Mel Gibson's punching a woman in a face out of 5 it's not very mad max II but it's still good and it's like the only Mad Max film that you could probably sit down with your friends kids and have a watch and they won't get all uppity and it's also the first one I've seen where they didn't have random [ __ ] pop up in the middle of a scene and I only take what you can get thank you all for watching I've been dr. Shiro and remember Godzilla [ __ ] up Sydney a lot worse than World War 3 did so I guess in that sense it makes sense that they still had ice cream you it's a factory did ask forward I know anything about methane you can shovel [ __ ] can't you

Channel: Decker Shado

Views: 90,837

Keywords: Decker Shado, mad max, beyond thunderdome, mad max 3, review, movie review, review (media genre), action, science fiction, sci fi, australian movie, ozsploitation, tina turner, mel gibson, bruce spense

Id: RIFVlrOZOF4

Length: 25min 47sec (1547 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 23 2016