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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
 Posted - 12/29/2007 : 12:35:30 AM
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I was curious, so I did a little checking on our Savannah. The actress playing her is named Helen Buday. She hasn't done a lot of work on the screen, although she may be active on stage. A recent pic of her made it look like she hadn't aged well at all, but it may have been the character she was playing.
But I do remember being taken with her when I was a teenager, and I suspect I'd feel the same way about her now; she's one of those ladies who don't look like a model, but there's just something about her that makes ya want to keep looking.
By the way, I did see Thunderdome more than once on HBO around '86 or '87, and I remember that the First Tracker was named Slake, and that racoon-like guy was named (oh brother) Mr. Scrooloose. |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2007 : 2:44:03 PM
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Hurrah! I’m not alone in Savannah-love!
Here’s a photographic pic of Helen Buday from 2003. She’s aged okay, I think. Of course, who knows what sort of makeup she’s wearing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HelenBuday.jpg
Max tosses the pilot’s cap straight up into the air, and the wind catches it and carries it waaayyy up to the top of the gorge and out of sight over the gorge’s lip. You can’t chalk that up to simply catching the wind, because a pilot’s cap isn’t very aerodynamic especially with a dead bird nailed to it. Then huge gusts of wind start blowing and an angelic chorus starts aaah-ing. The kids’ faces light up in reverential awe. They shout “This is it!” and charge excitedly out of the canyon. ScrooLoose* pauses for a moment to touch Max like someone who’s Just Gotta Touch My <god/rock star/athlete/actor>, then hurries to join the others.
[* - Brad is right: His name is ScrooLoose. Yuck. That sounds like a name of a Bartertown resident. I wanna keep calling him Raccoon, but for purism’s sake, ScrooLoose it is.
The kids spill out at a full run onto the desert, barreling gleefully towards an unseen something as Max strolls behind with a “Now what?” thought balloon over his head. I like the soundtrack here. A marchy theme for a band of clueless-yet-hopeful children. The music blares in triumph as we see that the kids have now massed on top of a commercial jet plane, presumably the one Captain Walker crashed. Either it’s behind a dune or it’s half-buried, because we only see the top half of it; still, Captain Walker must indeed have made a miraculous landing, because the thing looks to be more or less in one piece. Even more miraculous is that ScrooLoose has managed to perch himself atop the plane’s vertical tail fin! How the f**k did he get up there?!? The kids earnestly entreat Max to take them home now. Max gapes in weary disbelief at this insanely overblown request, then silently turns away and begins walking back to the village. Once again, Mel Gibson’s body language is perfect. Without saying a word, it’s clear that Max is having to juggle his disgust at this foolishness and not wanting to hurt the tribe.
Fade to sometime later. Back in the tribal home, Max is…literally doing nothing. Just sitting there. In what I’m guessing is continuity with the first film, Max’s left knee is bandaged, although neither the second movie nor this one ever makes an issue of his shot knee. Savannah announces that she and anyone else who wants to come is leaving to go find Tomorrow-Morrow Land themselves. First Tracker ain’t hearing of it, though. He sees Max’s failure to “catch the wind” as proof that the whole Tomorrow-Morrow Land line is rubbish. Disillusionment! Savannah counters that if Max isn’t Capt. Walker, than he must be a regular guy. A younger kid wearing the cutest post-Apoc outfit I’ve ever seen points out that if a regular guy could make his way to the tribe, then they ought to be able to get back. He says, “Co-pilot did it. So why can’t we?” I don’t understand that bit. Co-pilot left the tribe and made it to Tomorrow-Morrow Land? That can’t be, because how would they know whether or not he made it; and if they do know that he made it, wouldn’t they have tried to join him a long time ago? I don’t get it.
Savannah and First Tracker continue to butt heads, she saying that if they “wants the knowing,” then the treacherous trek is worth it; he saying that there ain’t no knowing that’s worth it. Holy pilgrimage versus empiric skepticism in a post-Apoc rural Australian dialect. Glorious!
Then Max jumps in to mention that if the sand doesn’t swallow them up then Bartertown will. Savannah brushes him off. As well she should. How does Max know which direction they’re going to be going in? Max, sit down you goon.
But Max is on a roll here, although his motivation is a bit uncertain.* He grabs First Tracker’s rifle, which has been converted into a staff. He grabs a bullet from a hanging ornament filled with the things, loads up, and fires a shot that burst a watersack close to Savannah’s head, terrifying everybody. He then gives a Swagger Speech:
[* - His motivation will remain uncertain throughout the remainder of the movie. So I’ll stop mentioning it until the end.
“Now listen good! I’m not Captain Walker. I’m the guy who keeps Mr. Dead in his pocket. And I say we’re gonna stay here. And we’re gonna live a long time, and we’re gonna be thankful. Right?” Mmmm….I dunno. I can see this as the post-Apoc way of expressing concern for the safety of children who aren’t your own, but I’m iffy as to whether Max would mind if these kids want to make the trek. Yeah, I can see him trying to warn them off, but I don’t think I’m buying him being this aggressive about keeping them safe. And he ain’t done yet, as we’re about to see.
Savannah makes to leave anyway. Ms. Buday does a very believable job of acting terrified but resolute, while the other kids aren’t even trying. Random item: At 1:05:10, there’s a close-up of her face as her right eye blinks three times while her left eye stays open. I don’t know if that was intentional or not; and for some reason my mind fixates on it. **Shrug** Bizarre.
Max loads up and fires another shot that almost bursts Savannah’s skull. She whirls around and chucks a spear at Max than lodges in the wood surface between his legs. Hey Max? Savannah? If you’re gonna engage in a ballistic conflict, knock off this missing-on-purpose crap. If you’re serious about this, HIT your target! It’s just like in high school when two guys stand jaw to jaw saying “C’mon! C’mon!” for half an hour while you and the rest of the peanut gallery wait for at least one of these two fruits to actually PUNCH somebody!
Max dashes up the slope, catches up to Savannah, and spins her around to face him. She stares him down with a defiant (and gorgeous!) glare. Max raises a fist, falters a bit, and then clocks her in the head, knocking her unconscious! Damn! Max may be regaining his humanity in this movie, but I guess there are still a few kinks to be worked out!
Cut to that night. Max munches on a piece of dead animal while Savannah and the rest of the trekking party are bound and gagged. Dig the sideview of Savannah’s bare thigh in the deerskin miniskirt she wears. Delightful!
Fade to the next day. A small girl shakes Max awake and blurts that ScrooLoose freed everyone while Max slept, and they’re all in the desert on their quest and help, you gotta do something, etc. This scene is unusual. Since those who stayed behind did stay behind, then it’s safe to say that they no longer see Max as anything special, except maybe his carrying of Mr. Dead in his pocket. So when Max follows this girl to the lip of the desert where all the other kids are staring at the Savannah tracks that lead into the distance, I’ve gotta wonder why they’re even bothering consulting with Max about anything. If they’re that concerned, why aren’t they going after them themselves? This is the only time in the movie when the kids seem to need adult guidance. Part of their charm in this movie is that they believably rugged enough not to need any.
With obvious reluctance, Max announces that he needs all the water he can carry so he can go out and find the wayward tribelings. Then he and a couple kids set off.
Fade to later. Max and his two traveling companions freeze as they hear a distant child’s cry. After looking around for a bit, they see a 6-year-old charging towards them from the direction they’d come. Apparently one of the stay-in-the-villagers had a change of heart and has now come to join them. The kid carries a cross with a teddy bear nailed to it. Oh now cute. Max mumbles to the others that this kid will have to hold his own.
Fade to later again. We see the crucified bear appear over the crest of a dune, then the kid who carries it, then we see he’s riding on the shoulders of Max. Komedy!
I can’t imagine Max giving Feral Boy a piggyback ride, can you?
A couple fades later to indicate the passage of time, the kids start double-timing it as they spotted a kite in the air. This kite was seen earlier when Max chucked his cap in the air, but it didn’t seem relevant at the time. Now, it indicates that Savannah’s band is just ahead! The camera pans down from the kite to Savannah and Co……to reveal that one of them is up to his neck in one of the very sand traps that Max had warned them about. He screams blue murder as Savannah, ScrooLoose, et al. try to hang onto the makeshift line that is the only thing keeping the kid alive (ScrooLoose gives a short “Aaaargh!” as he tries to keep hold of the rope, and that’s the movie’s only clue that his vocal cords work at all).
Hearing the screams, Max sprints into action! As the kid is pulled entirely under the sand, Max bellyflops onto ScrooLoose (tough kid to take the shot full-on without letting go of the rope!). With his adult strength, Max is able to pull the kids up, saving Savannah, who was pulled headfirst down to her waist in sand (nice ass shot here). But when the tail end of the rope comes out of the sand, there’s no kid hanging onto it. The kid has been swallowed alive by the sand.
Damn! With all the whimsy this movie has already made and even more yet to come, killing a kid this way was pretty unexpected. Nice! I only wish the rest of the movie had been this way. There are a dozens of kids, movie. Kill a few more if you want, it’s no biggie.
Savannah gives a few probably-looped screams and sobs, but other than that, there’s no emotional fallout at all. That’s a shame, because it would’ve been a nice character moment for her. Someone trusted her, believed in her, traveled with her,…and got killed because of it. What would that do to Savannah’s spirit? It would’ve been nice to see. As it is, Max, Savannah, et al. pull themselves safely out of harm’s way, and they all collapse on the sand.
Fade to that night. They’re all asleep, still in that exact same spot. Careless, Max. C’mon, y’all crashed right there on the slope of the all-powerful Sarlacc’s reasonably-powerful Aussie cousin? I’d figure you’d at least take ‘em over the top of the dune so if something causes a sandslide, everyone slides away from the danger. ScrooLoose wakes up, dashes up the slope, and dashes back down it a moment later. He excitedly wakes Max up (he’s gotta be getting sick of that), and everyone goes to see what he’s pointing at that’s got him so excited. They follow him to the top of the dune, from which they can see distant lights. “Is it Tomorrow-Morrow Land?” one of them asks. “No,” Max replies, “Bartertown…..It’s our only chance.” Depending on why Max is doing all this for these kids, that line may or not make sense. But it does provide a nice segue for the lamest scene in the entire movie.
I’ll continue tomorrow or New Year’s Day.
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2008 : 6:54:50 PM
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Wipe to Max and Co. sneaking into Bartertown via an air duct or something. The others scamper on ahead, while Max bickers with Savannah as he explains that they’re there to find a little guy who has “a lotta knowin’ of a lotta things!” Meaning Master, of course. I guess Max is assuming that Master will want to be of help to him once he recognizes Max as the guy who defeated his buddy and power-source.
At the end of the air duct, they spy from high in the wall into the underground chasm where all the pigs are. And there’s Master, sitting in a miniature corral that pigs swarm outside of. To Max’s irritation, the Crucified Teddy kid has already gone ahead and is walking amoung the pigs in what should be plain view of Ironbar and his Bartertown thugs although nobody sees him except an amused Pigkiller. ScrooLoose has also gone ahead and is hiding in the rafters with the monkey. I’ll be more generous than this movie deserves and guess that Max must’ve mentioned Master the genius/midget on the way to Bartertown during the cutaway, because otherwise there’s no reason for them to go ahead without knowing why they’re there.
The monkey makes monkeytalk, giving ScrooLoose away. Before anyone can do anything, some other kid who I can’t differentiate from anyone else Tarzans in on a vine, and he and ScrooLoose make their narrow escape back through the air duct, thanks to Ironbar’s Stormtrooper accuracy.
The guards take off in pursuit. Pigkiller knocks one out with a shovel to the face and makes to free Master, only to see that Crucified Teddy is already doing that. Okay, Max must’ve told the kids they were after Master during the cutaway. Sloppy!
This is already starting to feel silly, and it continues. A Mohawk-styled guard peeks into the air duct and gets punched off his perch by Max. Ironbar immediately starts firing into the duct from his floor-level position. Even though the angle saves Max from getting shot, the bullets would have to either lodge in the walls of the duct (which we see no evidence of), or they’d richocet in the duct, dicing whoever is in there. But Max comes through this without a scratch. Garbage.
Ironbar paces the floor while scanning the ceiling, apparently figuring where the duct might lead. Hearing a sound behind him, he whirls and aims his AK-47. But it’s just Pigkiller, who says in a nervous/gleeful tone, “Remember, no matter where you go, there you are.” Is this where that expression comes from? Ironbar makes a yeah-funny snort and makes to shoot Pigkiller. And then the Mad Max franchise says a final goodbye to the fans of the franchise who enjoyed the straight-faced brutality of the first two movies. In something straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon, Master throws a Random Lever, and a whole section of pipe falls out of the ceiling, landing on Ironbar. Max and Co. slide down this chute, whooping with glee all the way down. Merry action music, complete with a glockenspiel and flute, complete this absolute crap piffle. Even Master, who presumably has been a slave to Auntie all this time, finds it in him to get a good chuckle out of this.
Cut to Blackfinger (that’s the guy who was going to disable the explosive’s on Max’s vehicle much earlier in the movie). He strolling through the pigs, singing some jaunty tune himself. He stops when he sees Max and Co., notices the bodies of the guards lying all around, looks back at Max, grins and gives a cheerful “Hi!”, then runs for his life. Max gives chase. There’s a brief shot of them running through a traffic jam of pigs. I guess this is supposed to be amusing, but this movie is just irritating right now. And notice the pig at the very end of this shot who wipes out. I might be wrong, but I’m almost certain his hind legs were tied by a wire that was yanked by offscreen hands.
Having tossed the operative emotions of the franchise to the wind, the movie now borrows from another franchise. Blackfinger flees away from the camera. Max follows in hot pursuit. They both run out of sight. A couple seconds later, Max comes running pell-meel back towards the camera, now chased by half a dozen guards. I understand that Mad Max actually outgrossed Star Wars in Australia. Now Mad Max III is borrowing from Star Wars. This is not progress.
Max runs through a giant set of wooden double doors, which he and Savannah barricade just in time for a chainsaw blade to slice into the wood between their heads. Savannah’s even more beautiful with her hair down. And she’s also one tough-minded chick, because she seems relatively calm about almost getting killed by a device that she’s likely never seen before. Max and Savannah scamper through some pigs before coming to a surprised halt in front of….I guess it’s a jeep mounted onto a train engine. Pigkiller hollers “All aboard!” from the driver’s seat. Max is about to get aboard when he sees Auntie’s periscope moving around. Auntie is watching them! There a sign just about the periscope eye reading “Auntie The <something that looks like “here”> Is Watching You,” but it’s very hard to make out because all the colors in this underground place bleeding together into a kaleidoscope of browns.
Time for some more cartoonish fun. Max takes a shovel to the face courtesy of Ironbar. Savannah Tarzan’s into Ironbar (where are all these vines coming from? It’s like a comic book, where Batman has ropes to swing from everywhere), ScrooLoose tries to do the same but winds up knocking Max on his ass; but on the return slams full into Ironbar, which sends Ironbar flying backwards into a vat of pigsh*t. This IS pigsh*t. ScrooLoose is a strapping kid, but Ironbar is a stocky well-muscled guy. And ScrooLoose hits him in the chest with his feet. So there’s no way Ironbar would go flying. At worst, he’d just collapse to the dirt. But it looks cool. I guess.
Everyone climbs aboard the train, which we see is a two-car train. The engine itself and a passenger compartment. I had to watch this a couple times to get what’s happening. I guess the train engine is part of Bartertown’s energy mechanism, and it’s connected to all sorts of pipes and stuff. So Pigkiller revs the engine, and eventually the train rips itself out of its moorings and away they go.
Up on the surface of Bartertown, stuff is blowing up and people are scattering every which way. Brief cuts of pigs fleeing, Ironbar emerging from the vat of pigsh*t, a probably reused shot of the Bartertown gate from earlier in the movie (there’s nothing going on behind it), Loupe Guy looking like his whole world is collapsing, camels riding off in what I guess is pursuit, and Dr. Dealgood screaming “Chase now, pay later!” How Dr. Dealgood would know that there’s anything to chase, I have no idea. All they now is that stuff is blowing up.
Auntie appears on a rise and addresses the panicked townsfolk. She gives a nicely brief speech, simply saying that Bartertown will rebuild and that the job is to retake Master and kill whoever took him.
Cut to a bunch of vehicles zooming into the desert. All right! Finally, some vehicular mayhem! That’s what the Mad Max franchise is all about! We’re 1 hour 23 minutes in now, and so far we’ve seen very little of what made the series fun. So if this movie is gonna redeem itself, it’ll be now. C’mon, movie! I’m rooting for ya!
A long aerial shot of the Apococars riding out, a long rear shot of the train as it chugs along, that familiar desert under a cloudy late early morning sky…lookin’ good so far. Max scoots up to Pigkiller and asks what the plan is. Pigkiller gleefully says, “Plan?…There ain’t no plan!”
An exterior shot of the train now shows clear sky, and the shadows indicate noon or close to it. I don’t know if that’s a continuity error or just a lazy way of showing the passage of time. Were this a bus rather than a train, I could believe the latter; but a train runs on tracks, so it’s not like its pursuers don’t know which direction to go in.
Inside the passenger car, two of the kids have found a record player and excited try to make it play the LP they’ve got by spinning it around on the turnstile by finger. Through the open window, Max shows them how turn it on (Dude, go inside and sit down. Ain’t you tired?). It turns out to be a English-French tutorial, although the LP is so caked with dirt that I can’t imagine that it would still be playable, much less in perfect clarity. **shrug** Suddenly, the bad guys appear. The cars have caught up to the train. Bizarrely, so has Ironbar, who is traveling via those silly railway push-it-up-and-down things. It’s like Wile E. Coyote. Even more bizarrely, nobody on the train has noticed the baddies approaching until one of them reaches through a window and grabs Master. Max dispatches him by bonking him with a frying pan. No joke. He tosses to pan to ScrooLoose, who bonks another baddie in another window. What in the world is this crap?
Another goon grapples with Max, and both are hurled onto one of the side-pursuing cars. The goon is dislodged, Max punches out the driver with a punch that very obviously comes nowhere near his head, and effortlessly (and I mean effortlessly!!!) tosses him out of the car and gets behind the wheel and accelerates. This is my favorite shot in the movie. Because here, Finally!, after Thunderdome and the children and the running around among pigs and all that nonsense, Max is finally back behind the wheel of a car in the middle of a chase. It feels great! Max can now become Invulnerable Straight-Faced Bad-Ass, and I won’t mind a bit. Although the car’s exterior design is odd: It’s covered with what looks like cowskin. It’s a mottled black and white design. Odd, and maybe a way of keeping the tone light, but no biggie. Breaking out another V8 Interceptor would’ve been dorky.
ScrooLoose also leaps from the train onto a canvas truck. After scrambling to the front, he clocks the driver unconscious with the frying pan. Good God. Even worse, the driver collapses with a goofy grin on his face. The only thing missing are tweety-bird sound effects.
Movie….**spreads hands in disappointed resignation and walks away**
One of the other review sites has described this cartoonishness as the result of the franchise having given up on its audience. Pretty much! The folks who made the first two movies big hits are not the audience this movie is trying to appeal to. This movie is for kids. It’s not quite as extreme about it as RoboCop 3, but the effect is the same.
Let’s get this over with.
Here we actually get a cool little stunt. Ironbar, still up-and-downing that thing, (and apparently still keeping up with everybody , though I don’t see how), jumps from the thing onto the back of a truck, then onto a motorcycle, then onto a third truck with a cannon in the back. It’s pretty neat, watching him leapfrog from vehicle to vehicle at high speed. There is one cut in the middle, though, and the sunlight is a bit different, so it wasn’t filmed in one shot. Still, neat!
Ironbar catches up alongside the train engine. Recognizing Pigkiller in the driver’s seat, he fires a…dart or harpoon or something…that pierces right though the door and into Pigkiller’s leg. That’s as far as he goes, though, because Max drives up behind him, and bumper-pushes Ironbar’s vehicle right into the path of the train, which plows into it in a huge fireball. Pretty cool, although it’s edited such that the driver of Ironbar’s vehicle clearly has more than enough time to simply veer left and off the tracks no problem. Even worse, Ironbar is now hanging to the cowgrille of the train, his body blackened from head to toe, and screaming comically. Once again, it’s impossible to see this without thinking of Wile E. Coyote.
That’s it. THAT’S IT!!! I’ve had enough of this god-motherf**kin’-damn Looney Toons assmaggot sh*t for one evening. I’ll continue either Wednesday or Thursday.
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Edited by - Food on 01/01/2008 7:04:51 PM |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 01/03/2008 : 06:10:53 AM
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I remember watching a late-night show that riffed on movies; I think the host was Joe Bob Briggs. He commented on a big continuity gaffe MMBT had: for most of the movie, Master is wearing this black leather gladiator-type thing. But once they got on that makeshift train, Master's outfit had morphed into an old-style suit, complete with vest, tie, and bowler hat; he looked like an old country doctor. Briggs chalked this up to the two directors not being quite in sync with each other, and he may have been right.
Strange thing. For some reason, when I first saw this movie, my mind kept telling me there had been scenes explaining some of the brain farts we see here. Actually, I wish they'd put in the scenes I'd imagined seeing. It would have explained stuff like Scrooloose's behavior and Master's sudden costume change, and it would've made a better movie. (shrug) |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 01/03/2008 : 11:23:00 AM
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You know, I've always thought the last two sections Food has reviewed is where the movie goes to Hell. To be fair, the tribe of lost children is a great idea, and there are some good ideas thrown out here and there, like the kids mistaking Max for his long gone "mesiah". But then everything starts being played for cutesy-ness.
And the final action scenes... that's where I always start to throw stuff at the screen. After an hour and a half (I think) of ups and downs we finally get to see some decent action, and something that remotely resembles the first two movies (which is why people watch this second sequel, damnit!)... and it's mostly played for laughs. Damn. |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 01/04/2008 : 8:52:57 PM
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Brad’s right: Master goes from his leather gear to a three-piece suit and bowler hat, and we never see how or why. I’m embarrassed to have missed that.
Auntie and Blackfinger climb aboard the passenger cab, and a tug-of-war for Master ensues, with the kids trying to pull him over into the engine cab, Auntie pulling him to the passenger car, and Blackfinger pulling the pin that connects the two and then acting as the pin himself. Savannah and Auntie wishbone with Master and scream at each other like it’s The View. This is rendered through close shots semi-rapidly cut. Great. The only scene in the movie that features two beautiful women, and we don’t really get a good look at either of them. Behind the train, Max has driven right up behind it, and he now jumps out of the driver’s seat and onto the passenger cab. How’d he do that? Put something heavy on the gas pedal? The train has been going fast enough that its pursuers are flying after them to keep up (except for Ironbar and the up-and-down thing*). Yet when Max leaps off the car and onto the train, it’s not even a difficult leap. How’d he do that?
[* - What are those things called? I’m starting to feel humiliated.
Eventually, Auntie outmuscles Savannah and wrests Master away. Blackfinger lets go of the engine car, and the two cabs begin to pull away from each other. But Max reaches down from his spot on the roof of the cab and plucks Master from Auntie’s grasp and then leaps onto the engine cab. Auntie lets out a nicely cheesy scream of frustration (might as well’ve said, “Curses, foiled again!”) as the engine cab makes its escape.
But it ain’t over yet, dammit. Ironbar, body blackened from head to toe, has somehow extricated himself from the cowgrille and is scrambling around the side of the cab! Good God. The movie’s enjoying this, isn’t it?
Ironbar’s maliciously gleeful expression turns to comical horror as the….some beam on a pivot or something, I don’t know…that he’s hanging onto comes loose and swings out, leaving him dangling about 10 feet in the air and screaming comically. A pursuing motorcycle and sidecar tries to get under him (although why it would be as difficult as we see it, I have no clue), until it plunges into a chasm that I guess the driver didn’t see coming. Close-up of Ironbar as he looks down at the carnage with a “That’s gotta hurt!” look. I hate this part of the movie, I swear to God.
And the worst is yet to come. After all the Looney Toons crap we’ve got already, the most difficult-to-stage Looney Toons bit comes here. As the train chugs along, it passes a series of what look like maintenance platforms that are juuust about as high as Ironbar is now. There are four of them, and when each one approaches, Ironbar gives a comical “YEEEOOOWWW!!!!” as he hurdles himself over them. The first two are filmed in separate cuts, and the last two are filmed in one cut. I’ll give the stuntman credit: This is damn impressive. Even if the things were made of plastic, the speed is real and failing to leap over the things would’ve genuinely hurt. So all props to the stuntman.
Having leapt all four safely, Ironbar takes a moment to look behind at the receding platforms (letting one hand go of the bar he’s hanging onto!) and giving a “Dude, that sucked!” look. He’s right. It did. Then one of the kids saws the pipe in two (where’d the saw come from? Same place they come from in the cartoons, I guess!), and Ironbar plunges to what I figured was his death. The movie drops the ball by not giving that whistley sound that the Coyote gets when he falls off ledges.
The danger temporarily over, Max slides along the outside of the cab to the driver’s door, where the bolt in Pigkiller’s leg still sticks through the door. Max braces Pigkiller for spontaneous foreign body extraction by saying, “We’re gonna count to three!” On the count of one, Max yanks the door open (This would only exacerbate the wound, because the bolt wouldn’t come straight out of his leg, but at an angle, further gashing the muscle tissues. Way to go, Max). Pigkiller’s voice goes up two octaves as he whimpers, “What happened to two?” Audiences watching Mad Max 3 left the theaters wondering the same. More lame Komedy in a bit that has nothing to do with anything.
At 1:31:07, there’s a close-up of Savannah’s face. I paused it here for a couple hours.
She gets Max’s attention, because the tracks ahead are blocked by….a dirt mound, I guess…with a figure holding a rifle standing atop it. Max quickly jumps in the cab and hits the brakes. The train naturally comes to a safe halt just in time. Mmmm…..I know that modern trains need an unbelievable amount of room to come to a complete stop. Since this is just one engine car, though, I guess maybe it’d be able to stop that quickly, although my gut says no way.
The figure on the mound is Gyro Pilot, Jr. He shouts, “Anybody moves, and they’re dead meat!” After being around the pleasantly non-cutesy kids in this movie, this cutesy just irritates the piss out of me. If the movie wanted to go for humor that worked, here’s a good time: Just have Savannah blast his head off or something. That’d be great! No luck, though. Instead, everybody on the train simultaneously look behind the train at the numerous vehicles on the horizon charging towards them. The Gyro Jr gets the point and flees down the rocky slope.
Max and Co. follow him into an underground passage whose entrance is hidden by a long-wrecked car. Jr runs to Sr’s bedroom shouting that they’ve gotta flee. For some reason, Gyro Sr brushes him off until he hears the voices of Max and Co and sees them running pell-mell through the corriders. When Max runs past Sr’s bedroom, he quickly comes to a stop with arms aflail. I was half-expecting to hear the screeching of brakes.
This next bit is a neat bit of ambiguity. Max recognizes Gyro, but whether from The Road Warrior or from this movie is uncertain. The dialogue, mildly comic, goes as follows:
Max: You!
Gyro: Me?
Max: You. It’s your lucky day?
Gyro: It is?
Max: Uh-huh. You got a plane.
Gyro: I have?
**sound of the plane starting up nearby**
Max: It might just save your life.
Gyro: It will?
Max: Uh-huh.
My sense is that Max recognizes Gyro as the man who stole his camels, Road Warrior notwithstanding; and Max is saying that he oughta kill Gyro for that, but needs his help.
Mild continuity error: When Max ran from the train to the tunnel entrance, he carried Master on his back. When Max meets Gyro, he isn’t. We now cut to where the plane is revving up as everyone scampers aboard. Max is carrying Master again.
I’m not sure that this tiny plane could carry the eight people I’m counting, but maybe it could. What it can’t do, though, is take off with all the weight. Gyro brakes the craft just before it would’ve gone over the cliff ledge. Gyro does a Don Knotts-style bulge-your-eyes-out-at-the-camera at 1:34:20. The plane turns around to try to lift off again when a truck screeches up to it. But it’s only ScrooLoose, now wearing a Mohawk helmet and strutting like he’s real proud of himself (and still holding the stupid frying pan!). They hustle him in the plane.
Gyro tells Max that there’s not enough runway because of the approaching fleet of cars approaching. Max says that there will be enough runway and to get going. Then Max hops into ScrooLoose’s truck. Between cuts of the baddies approaching the goodies and vice versa, Max zooms alongside the accelerating plane, the kids look at Max with…something…on their faces. Max gives them the disinterested look that he wore all throughout The Road Warrior, and accelerates away. I notice that the plane’s has no door in the hold where the Savannah, Pigkiller, and Master are. I hope they’re holding onto something.
Max and the fleet are on a collision course, and the truck Max has singled out is driven by Ironbar! Again, it’s just like the Coyote: A gruesome death in one scene, back good-as-new in the next. Hey Max! Look into the camera and say “Meep, meep!” It’ll be perfect!
Max makes to leap out of the driver’s side of the vehicle. Various cuts of the vehicles, Max, Ironbar, etc. But when Max finally does leap out of his truck, he leaps out of the passenger side. Sloppy! The collision itself is okay, but tame compared to the previous movies. We cut to a different angle a split second after impact. The trucks go airborne and crash to earth in slo-mo. The plane takes off with just a few feet to spare as Triumphant Music plays. Close-up of Gyro as he banks the plane to port. Uh-oh. The doorless entrance where the kids are is on the port side. I really hope they’re holding onto something.
The view from the plane shows multiple wrecked vehicles, although I don’t quite see how two vehicles colliding could’ve done that much damage. I can allow that maybe when they landed they might’ve taken out one or two more, but still. And the kids are looking at the tableau without holding onto anything. Editor wasn’t paying attention, I guess. Max is down and bleeding, but conscious. He lifts his head enough to see that the plane is safely on its way.
Cut to Ironbar’s overturned and smoking truck. A trembling hand extends from the window. It spastically raises itself, rotates 180 degrees, flips off…I assume Max, but it feels like us. Right back atcha, movie.
Guards surround Max as he struggles to sitting position. Auntie gloats over him, saying, “Well…ain’t we a pair….raggedy-man.” Then she gives a nicely done Evil Chuckle and turns away. Boarding her vehicle, she bids him adieu with, “Goodbye, soldier!” Then all the surviving baddies drive off, leaving Max alone in the desert. I can’t tell if Auntie is abandoning him to die in the desert or if she’s sparing him. **shrug** The last clear shot of Max in the movie is of him ambling in no particular direction among the wreckage as the camera pulls away. Pretty nice!
Cut to Gyro and Co. as the plane flies into a big-ass dust storm. Does the Australian desert get dust storms that big? After a while, we go to a mildly jerky slo-mo as from out of the dust storm, the ruins of Sydney become visible.* I understand that the makers built a 3,000-square-foot scale model of Sydney for this scene. If so, they didn’t use it enough, as we don’t see that much of it. But what we do see, with a lonely wind instrument for soundtrack, is excellently surreal and haunting. The look on Gyro’s face is great, too. This usually whimsical guy seems subdued with the vision of a place he never thought he’d see again and knows will never be as good again, at least not in his lifetime.
[* - Not that I’d know it was Sydney if not for the Opera House. Like most Americans, I recognize no other Sydney landmark other than.]
There are a pair of minor puzzlers, though. First, is the dust storm a residual of the Pox-Eclipse? This and the previous movie make it pretty clear that it’s been at least a couple decades since then. I don’t think a dust cloud would still be around. And if the cloud is some form of radiation thing, I don’t think the kids will be around much longer. Second, how was Gyro talked into flying there? The kids didn’t know where they were going or in what direction to go. What did they tell him, fly until you crash?
Then Savannah’s voice gives the Closing Narration. Over more images of the wrecked city, she has that “The years travel fast. And time after time I’ve done The Tell.” So this coda is years later. (And for what it’s worth, they don’t do The Tell every night like when First-Tracker was doing it).
Here’s the whole coda speech: Time counts and keeps countin', and we knows now finding the trick of what's been and lost ain't no easy ride. But that's our trek, we gotta' travel it. And there ain't nobody knows where it's gonna' lead. Still in all, every night we does the tell, so that we 'member who we was and where we came from... but most of all we 'members the man that finded us, him that came the salvage. And we lights the city, not just for him, but for all of them that are still out there. 'Cause we knows there come a night, when they sees the distant light, and they'll be comin' home.
During the coda, we see the inside a wrecked building that I guess is their cathedral. The tribe is there, lots of infants, too. Savannah herself holds one. Another shot of the ruins, only this time there are lights peppering the higher floors of the skyscrapers.
The movie ends with a rear shot of Max, silhouetted in evening light, as Savannah delivers the last line, “and they’ll be coming home.”
Fade out.
A closing dedication “…For Byron” appears. He was the man killed during location scouting. Classy to put it before the end credits and not after.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
I knew after seeing Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome once that this movie was half good/half lousy, but during this dissection I realized that the lousy bits were killing the movie for me far more so than most half/half movies’ lousy bits do. I’m afraid it also hurts the quality of this dissection. This post and the one before it is pretty much me just saying, “<fill-in-the-blank> happens, it’s cartoonish, I hate it.” No analysis at all. That’s not a dissection, that’s a review that’s far longer than it needs to be. So I apologize for blowing this one. I feel bad about that, especially since the first post of this dissection is, IMO, the single best post of any dissection I’ve ever done. So I went to Hell along the same arc as the movie. Embarrassing!
It’s the degree of lightheartedness, that’s all there is to it. This movie was acceptable when it was merely more playful than its predecessors; but when it doing live-action cartoon stuff….I just don’t see how anyone felt this would be enjoyable. Doubly Irritating that the gear shift happened right after the kid got swallowed by the sand. That was solidly chilling. The movie’s announcing that it has no qualms killing a kid so gruesomely generated suspense, because it made it unknown if any given kid was gonna live to the end credits. As their quest was a religious quest to them, any deaths that occur would (theoretically, I admit) have a spiritual weight to them instead of being raw meat thrown to the audience. So to shift from killing a kid to Looney Toons so quickly gives the death scene a retrospective feeling of “Just kidding, folks.”
Max. I like that he didn’t get too friendly or paternal with the kids. He still the “garbage” that the blond guy from The Road Warrior described him as. And while his interactions with the kids is consistent with itself, what’s missing is the why. Why did he aid them on their quest? When he caught up to them, why go for Bartertown (“It’s our only chance.”) instead of turning them around and leading them back home? He wants Master for his knowledge, but what does Max care about that knowledge? When he wrests Master from Auntie and returns him to the kids, what does Max care who has him? What I’m saying is, he’s thrown in his lot with the kids, but since it was in a quest that he himself knocked their female leader unconscious to prevent them going on, I need more info if I’m gonna buy it.
Speed/chases/vehicles. Again, when Max sits himself in the Cowmobile, it feels great because we’d gone the whole time without seeing him zooming after or away from somebody. Credit for trying different stuff, but the paucity of Max as death-on-wheels coupled with the earlier Max as hand-to-hand bad-ass bit leads me to conclude that sticking to formula may have been a better bet.
Savannah. **siiiigggghhhh**
The ending. I think this ending is very very appropriate. A good ending to the movie, and to the trilogy as well. The first movie gave us despair, but not certain doom just yet. The second gave us manifest doom with no hope in sight. This movie completes the U by giving us the continuation of doom, with a nice touch of hope at the end. I like this ending. It should’ve ended a much better movie than this.
BOTTOM LINE
As a standalone, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome would likely be good fun for someone unfamiliar to the Mad Max franchise. For me, it’s only good for completeness’ sake. If I watch the first two back to back, I’ll have to watch the third just out of whynot.
Mad Max 4?
http://www.moviehole.net/news/20071025_mad_max_4_is_back_on.html
End of dissection. Thank you.
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 01/05/2008 : 7:44:14 PM
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Not that it matters, but the "up-down" thing is a hand car. They were all replaced by modified model-Ts around 1920.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 01/05/2008 : 9:30:59 PM
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| Thank you kindly, GH! |
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Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
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