Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

This is the Mad Max film I’ve returned to the least, so seldom indeed it must have last seen it in the late 90s. At that point in time, following the classic joyful childhood viewings when silly things like taste simply don’t get in one’s way, I really couldn’t roll with much of this at all. Miller’s decision to shift things to a PG-13 degree of violence and nastiness, Max’s evolution into a minor redeemer figure, and Tina Turner were all things that got me pretty worked up.

Rewatching it with less need to prove my good taste to myself – that train has not only gone but dive-bombed into a canyon with all passengers lost – I was first surprised by the heavy sense memory I was hit with during the first act, in an intensity I don’t get all that often. Apparently, the parts of the film until shortly after the Thunderdome sequence have been burned into my brain like Claremont X-Men comics, the original Star Wars trilogy, and Inframan. That went away once Peter Pan’s weird children appeared, but even as a child, I wasn’t too much into child protagonists, so that tracks quite well.

What I truly realized about the film this time around is how incredible Miller’s design sense is, how lived-in and strange Max’s world has become, and in turn, how Miller made his world stranger with every movie, the world breaking apart into further weirdness and strange delusions the longer it goes on after the apocalypse.

I don’t hate the children anymore as I once did, either. Or at least, I absolutely appreciate how Miller uses the Lost Boys to present an alternative to the capitalist hell of Bartertown, hope born from innocence and a lack of knowledge of the most destructive alternatives, but hope nonetheless. Emotionally, Max’s turn into a saviour figure still doesn’t quite work for me, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t want to watch the adventures of a guy who just lets a bunch of children run to their doom.

So this still is my least favourite Mad Max film, but now one I’ll occasionally rewatch and enjoy. Also, Tina Turner is a fantastic villain, what were you thinking, young Me!?