Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
(aka: Mad Max 3)
(Region 2 PAL DVD)
(1985)
review by Billion$Baby

Hmmm. I recently caught this again for the first time in years and it's not actually as bad as I had recalled. In terms of violence, stunts, excitement or just sheer nastiness, it certainly doesn't match the first two Max Rockatansky outings. It takes a slighty different almost Spielbergian approach. There's more humour here and a heck of a lot more feral kids, but Mel Gibson gets the opportunity to spread his Mad Max acting wings wider once more after the fairly one-dimensional performance that The Road Warrior required.

I've always loved the excellent supporting performance of Robert Grubb as "Pig Killer", together with that of Frank Thring and Bruce Spence. Amongst the strong adult cast, Tina Turner co-stars in the best role and performance of her career (not very hard) as Auntie, the charasmatic leader of Bartertown, a scavenging community. She also provides the only two decent songs of her entire solo career! To go with the both of those, Maurice Jarre provides an excellent score which does sometimes stray into cheesy territory. But the majority of it is top-notch and it's also very touching at times.

(BTW I've always found Helen Buday very attractive in this feature although she certainly isn't a "classic beauty" (whatever that is). Perhaps I like the "girl painted in orange mud" look? Mind you, I'm not sure how old she is here. If she's underage, I'm not coming across too well).

The faster paced first half of the film is undoubtably the better as we watch a long-haired Max pursue his stolen goods to Bartertown and become involved in the usual life-risking escapades whilst the feature keeps it's tongue firmly planted in it's cheek. After that, the ewoks arrive in the form of a tribe of 50-60 children who mistakedly believe that Max is their returned saviour Captain Walker, who years ago, left their stranded community with the other adults to seek help.

The film then might not be as good as the first half but it's still amusing with the children's misinterpretation of the english language and history. And I definitely prefer the haircut that the kids give Max. This part features a great "Now listen good. I'm not Captain Walker, I'm the guy that keeps Mr Dead in his pocket..." speech from Max after he shocks the tribe by loading and shooting a gun. Presumably this was the main inspiration for Ash's "primitive screwheads" and "boomstick" speech in Raimi's Army Of Darkness.

After returning to Bartertown, the end of The Road Warrior is played out again, only this time with Max and several others trying to escape the bad guy's vehicles in a train. It doesn't impress as much this time around but it's still good fun to watch. Luckily, Beyond Thunderdome features a highly redeeming ending surrounding Max's final act of heroism and Auntie's treatment of him but the film still only just earns that mark allocated to it. Not too certain if I'd want to see another one of these films. Part of me would really love to see Mel Gibson return to this classic character in another sequal but this third feature is undoubtably the weakest of the trilogy. Although it does round off the story nicely at the very end. Perhaps the franchise should just be left alone?

This is one of those horribly grainy cheap discs from WB in the usual cardboard case. Yep, the print is poor, the 5.1 sound is bland, and the extras are lacking. Although at least we do get a trailer and some production notes. You know the score. Buy if you really want this film in widescreen now, or wait for adecent version to arrive.