Customer Reviews
High speed road movie that changed cinema - By: redmanshouts, 03 Mar 2008 
High speed chases, open endless roads & nomad bikers in a post-apocalyptic vision of the future. Mel Gibson is Max, a police/highway patrolman who is determined to live his life clean & rid the roads of the scum that terrorise them. Events transpire that catapult him into another world, another outlook & new way of doing his job. A great film that looks as good as it sounds. Still modern & still plenty to admire. The film 'Saw' has a lot to thank this film for..!
Road Kill - By: Lan, 01 Dec 2007 
This is a very slow movie which seems like the script wasnt quite finished..maby i need to see the trilogy to appreciate it..but i was not impressed not very mad I say. Plot holes were left right & centre but hey what can you do eh?..oh & i suggest before you watch it you take off the american dubbing & have the original australian. I think that helped spoil it for me.Sorri for the sour milk people but i gotta tell it like it is! One
The Last Law in a World Gone Out Of Control!!! - By: Mad Max, 21 Nov 2007 All I can say about this cult classic is buy it as it's one of the best road movie\apocalyptic science fiction movies you will ever see & is a must in any DVD collection. Here's hoping the prequel will be just as good, fingers crossed.
Superbly simple - By: R. J. Harvey, 07 Sep 2007 
Mad Max 2 is the better film, for sure: it's bigger, grislier, & more exciting. But the original is very good not just because it explains why Max is perturbed, but because it does so without compromising his character's silent & innate masculinity - which is some feat considering the amount of skin-tight leather on show.
Max himself - skilfully underplayed by Mel Gibson - is at the heart of alll the main narrative turns. It's he who kills the Nightrider; his best friend who's murdered by the gang that wants to get to him; his family who are targeted for the final showdown. And yet Max is on screen quite rarely. Not that he needs to be seen: he is an archetype of sorts; the last spring of morality in an apocalyptic desert.
Thanks to a tight & sympathetic script, Max & Jessie's relationship is entirely convincing. The music, by Brian May (no, not that one), is superbly melodramatic; always complementary, never intrusive.
It's not complex. At one point Max tells his boss that if he spends any more time on the road he'll "be one of them" - we know what territory we're in, & it's not about blurring moral boundaries; it's about raw, red-blooded revenge.
That's when a myth started of a crazy rider - By: Jacques COULARDEAU, 30 Jul 2007 The first film of the Mad Max trilogy is not a great film at alll. But it is the birth certificate of a cult character, Mad Max himself. A simple film about crazy bikers on Australian roads where they think they can do what they want. Against them a special unit of cops who are supposed to chase them & get them off the road. It is then a real war between the two clans, the hooligans & the law. Till one day Max decides to retire & go away with his wife & child to some peaceful country ranch. But if you don't chase the bikers, the bikers will come chasing you, & that's exactly what happens. The bikers come chasing after Max's wife & child who they manage to kidnap. The characters are obnoxious, so true that they seem real, cruel but not to make anyone suffer, just because it is some kind of entertainment in their idle boredom doing nothing at alll & living on the local population they ransack & exploit. In such a situation no reason exists & the powerless must die. Then the ex-cop quits his quitted situation & un-quits his own idleness & goes back into the profession & starts chasing the bikers to death. And he will just do that, one after the other & in spite of crippling wounds. We touch there the fundamental myth of these films: the hero is necessarily a re-incarnation of the savior of the world who is able to survive any mishap & even resurrect if necessary. The interest of the film is the simplicity of the argument: these primitive people who might even not have a mind of their own are playing tick-tack-toe with the lives of the others & the crazy madman will necessarily have the final advantage & will get the last eye & the last tooth. This film shows how simple life is for these people who only think with their death instinct & feel with their desire to kill. The whole world is the color of blood & hatred.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
