Maverick: The Complete Third and Fourth Seasons

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Maverick, the television series, ran for several seasons in the late 1950s to the early 1960s. It starred James Garner (amongst others) as a wise-cracking, woman-chasing gambler in the old west who gets in lots of trouble every episode. In 1994 they made a movie out of it starring Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, and James Garner. I’ve seen the movie multiple times. Every few years I put it on thinking that I like it. Every time I’m disappointed. The cast is charming and the story isn’t bad, but something about it just annoys me.

I probably ordered this DVD set misremembering how much I liked the movie. The series isn’t bad, but it definitely wasn’t for me. You can read my full thoughts here.

Mad Max (1979)

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I’ve watched the Mad Max series kind of backward. I saw Fury Road (2015) in the theaters, and really quite loved it, while also noting its utter ridiculousness. Then I watched Mad Max 2 (1981) a couple of months ago and followed it up pretty quickly with Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). Truth is I had always heard that the first Mad Max film wasn’t all that good and that’s why I skipped it. Until now.

The film is quite a bit different than its sequels. Whereas they are set in a post-apocalyptic world in which society has completely broken down, in this one society seems to be mostly intact. For sure some things are broken, but it feels more in line with similar films from the era in which urban crime is high and the police seem helpless to fix it.

Mel Gibson stars as Max Rockatansky, an Australian police officer who is decidedly not the super awesome butt kicker he is in the sequels. Well, sort of not. In a pretty great opening sequence, some crazy bikers are being chased by Max’s fellow officer. They create all sorts of havoc until Max is called in and chases them down. But after that scene we find Max to be a gentle family man with a wife and small child. He takes them to the countryside and they have a nice holiday.

Of course, things eventually turn bad and Max becomes the man we’ve come to know and love in those later films. But it does take a while to get there. I feel like watching this series out of order was actually helpful. Had I watched the first one first I might not have gotten around to watching the sequels. But by watching the original after I had seen all the sequels, the original film now feels like an origin story, a prequel. And as such, while still not as good as any of the sequels, it fills in some character details and lets me know how Max became Mad Max.

There are some pretty spectacular car crashes, made even more incredibly realizing they all had to be done in one take as the tiny budget wouldn’t have allowed for more.

So, yeah, this feels like a warm-up for what is to come. Consider it practice for the terrible beauty of Mad Max 2 and Fury Road. Or look at it like a full-length DVD extra origin story.

Awesome ’80s in April: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

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Memory is a strange thing. If you have asked me last year if I’d seen all of the Mad Max movies I would have told you that I had. I might have hesitated for a moment before I answered and admitted that I wasn’t real sure about Mad Max (1979), but I had almost certainly seen Mad Max 2 (1981) and had 100% watched Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. I have real memories of watching that one several times on cable TV as a kid.

The thing is while watching Beyond Thunderdome I remembered absolutely nothing of what appeared on the screen, and the few memories I did have of the film didn’t actually happen. So, have I watched this movie before? Or did I just dream it? Or maybe I was so young my memories of it have been supplanted. Who knows? But after watching this and Mad Max 2 recently I definitely need to watch the first one and then I’ll probably hit up Fury Road before long as well.

Beyond Thunderdome takes place sometime after the events of Mad Max 2. Max (Mel Gibson) now rides in a camel-driven vehicle. It is stolen by an airborne bandit (who is played by Bruce Spence who played a pilot in the previous film, but is apparently a different character in this one). Max follows the thief to Bartertown, which is run by Aunty Entity (Tina Turner). She’s attempting to recreate a civilized society but it is a long, difficult process.

Bartertown is fueled by pig poop burned into methane in a series of underground caverns. This area is run by a resourceful dwarf called Master (Angelo Rossitto) who rides around on top of a giant called Blaster (Paul Larsson). Master Blaster had designs to run Bartertown himself. Aunty Entity fixes things so that Max has to take him down so Aunty can stay on top. This concludes in a battle inside the Thunderdome (a big, circular cage where our two opponents jump around on bungee cords and try to kill each other).

Things don’t go as planned and Max finds himself exiled from Bartertown. Soon enough he stumbles upon some kids who have formed their own Lost Boys-esque community. Wouldn’t you know it Max and these lost kids eventually have to go to Bartertown and battle it out with Aunty and her minions. It all concludes with a big action scene with our heroes on a train being followed by the villains in various autos.

The general consensus is that Beyond Thunderdome is a lesser film than Mad Max 2 and that the scenes with the kids are an out-of-left-field oddity that takes the film down a notch. I get that, but also I kind of dug it. It isn’t nearly as exciting as Mad Max 2, but it isn’t trying to be. I do love the world-building in these films and this one really attempts to dig a little into how the people would try to rebuild their society after absolute devastation.

At the time Tina Turner was a huge star. She’s fine but she definitely dates this film within a very specific time frame. I actually like the kids, too. More or less. They created a goofy language for them which is kind of fun and kind of annoying. But their story is interesting. They basically don’t understand what happened to the world and have invented a myth about a pilot returning (they are the survivors of a crashed plane) and saving everybody. I dig the idea of people building new myths in the aftermath of an apocalypse.

The final chase sequence is good, but it is hard not to feel a little let down after watching the much better sequence in Mad Max 2. It makes sense to me that Fury Road is essentially one long, epic chase sequence. I mean why not take the best parts of all these movies and turn that into your new film?

Awesome ’80s In April: Mad Max 2 (1981)

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While watching Mad Max Fury Road (2015) in the theater, just about the time when the guy strapped to a truck loaded up with speakers started playing his guitar that spits fire, I turned to my wife and said, “you have to look past the utter ridiculousness and enjoy the ride.”

That remains a helpful hint when your watching The Road Warrior, also known as Mad Max 2. In these two films (and presumably the other two in the series, though I’ve never seen Mad Max (1979) and barely remember Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)) writer/director George Miller has created a fascinating post-apocalyptic world in which souped up cars are the currency and gasoline is worth more than gold.

After the exploits of Mad Max, Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) has become a mythic figure (and there is a reading of Fury Road in which the Max in that movie (played by Tom Hardy) is not the same Max in the other films but has just carried on the name, or is a part of a larger mythology). An opening narration both sums up what happened in Mad Max, and gives us insight into the legend that has become Mad Max.

Our film begins proper with Max once again on the road. He is a loner. He is haunted by the death of his family in the first film. He cruises the streets in a super charged black car. He fights off a group of marauders and outsmarts a strange gyrocopter pilot (Bruce Spence). To keep from getting killed or left behind the pilot tells Max of a place that has fuel. Lots of it. It is an old oil refinery and a group of people have made it work again.

Max tricks his way inside but then finds himself captured. Before anything can be done with him the group of marauders that attacked Max in the beginning is laying siege to the refinery. They are way outnumbered and there is no way they can keep the enemy out forever. Max declares he can scavenge a large truck that can drive a tanker full of gasoline out of the compound and into safety.

What follows is a nearly twenty minute action sequence that feels like a dry run for most of Fury Road. Director George Miller is completely at home with the action. It isn’t quite as fluid here as it is in Fury Road but it is just as thrilling. The stunts are all practical as well, there was no CGI back then. One wonders just how dangerous it was all to perform. One marvels at the technical skill involved. It is one of the great action sequences in all of cinema.

Getting to that sequence isn’t quite as thrilling, but its still pretty darn great. The world Miller has created is an interesting one. I’m a big fan of post-apocalyptic cinema and they’ve done a great job of creating this world. Filmed in the deserts of Australia it looks like a world gone to hell. Mel Gibson is great as Max, I know he’s fallen out of favor of late (and with good reason) but there was a reason he was one of the biggest stars in the 1980s and into the 1990s and you can certainly see that here.

Mad Max 2 has certainly whetted my appetite to be back in this world. I’ll probably give the other films a spin this month even though I’m fully aware their reputations aren’t nearly as good.