A New Perspective

Alexcregan, I too found Beyond Thunderdome to be an entertaining, strange, odd, weird and somewhat compelling movie. As I said in one of my previous posts, there are some odd moments of almost cartoonish quality, especially when the kids start to get involved with the fights and chase scenes.

This movie is a tough nut to crack, it's caught somewhere between the harder edged action of the first 2 films, and the family movies that Miller would eventually go on to make (in fact if you look at his work history, it almost seems that he went into this "family friendly" phase after the death of Byron Kennedy).

The part that stands out most for me is the oral history the children tell to Max. There are some great moments there, especially with Max's initial refusal to help. The first half seems a completely different movie with a much darker tone and direction. The children plays on what appears to be a continuing motif in the series of him redeeming or constantly re-avenging the death of his child. There is even a nice touch in the soundtrack that all the saxophone music appears to callback somewhat to the first film where his wife played for him (although it doesn't really work, I see what they were trying to do there).

All in all, although uneven and in some places heavy handed, it still stands out as an interesting oddity/flawed jewel of 80s-era filmmaking.

I don't know if you're aware of this but I've already changed things. I killed Ben Linus.
--Sayid

It has some very nice visuals. In particular, the opening shot across the desert as it swoops down to Max on his camel train, and the Sydney harbour/desert storm scene very well done.

Mel is terrific as usual. He didn't like this movie and it's clearly a much more watered down affair and they gave him lines like "Me, fairy princess" but I liked how he played it. No matter how much sentimentality the direction went in, he still gave Max that slight edge to him and played it kind of emotionally detached from the kids.

The Thunderdome fight itself is terrific, I've always been impressed by it. Could have done with another fight or two in there before Max is banished. Instead of Max passing Aunty's test, he gets in to a fight with someone else, kills him in Thunderdome, and then she realises she can use him for Master. But of course that isn't the direction the movie wants to go in because it's more of a family movie and that's one of the main problems for me with it.

Max doesn't kill anyone. The only person he kills throughout the entire movie has already "died" twice.

And the kids? I don't have a problem with kids been in it, I have a problem with the way they're presented. They're too clean cut, innocent and pure. They should have been a bit more wild and savage.

The train sequence is way too tame and silly, it's like a Road Runner cartoon. We've gone from people been raped, burned and pulled underneath cars in the first two movies, to kids hitting the bad guys with frying pans as they do a half dazed smile right in to the camera, and Ironbar surviving explosions and such. There was no suspense. I never once felt like the kids were in danger from the bad guys, despite the fact that a couple died from being sucked in to the sand.

Mad Max went to Hollywood is what they should have called it. The tone is too light even before the kids show up, and it just lacks that real dirt, grit and sense of violence the first two had.



I reckon you got a bargain don't you?