"Who run Bartertown?"
For now, I'm going to have a short series of reviews of that most burning of themes--Mildly Contested Movie Sequels! We're not talking ones that set fandoms and critics into fits of incandescent rage, nor ones that blighted the landscape that their master reels were buried in deepest ocean trenches. No, these are the ones that inspire more...middling feelings? The ones not many outright hate, but might not love. Here, I'll endeavour to summon up some stronger emotions, if I can, and see if I can pick a side!
We'll be starting out with the third of the post-apocalyptic franchise--Mad Max, specifically Beyond Thunderdome. And by coincidence, recently we've seen more news confirming that Mel Gibson, who to begin with is not exactly a paragon of sanity himself, is, in fact, definitely nuttier than a squirrel dancing atop a massive pile of macadamias. It wouldn't surprise me if he's planning a film where he himself plays Joan of Arc wiping out the cartoonishly evil English, while having the opportunity to placate his fundamentalist leanings that probably view Tomas de Torquemada as an overly kindly lightweight. So with that out of the way, let's talk about Australia's most famous cinematic offerings since a certain comparer of knives!
It's actually kind of hard to compare the original three Mad Max films. The first was a fairly straight-up cop story set in the social uncertainty of the time, just Aussie-themed, and turned up to eleven. It's not even post-apocalyptic--civilization still stands, if barely, and as such we get bemusing scenes of road cop Max Rockatansky dealing with lawyers and going to a disco. There isn't even the vast desert landscapes we tend to think of when mentioning the films, but rather the lush Australian coastal regions. That was all codified by the second film, with its leather-clad BSDM thugs and crazy custom vehicles clashing in the Outback--but it still retained the somewhat dark tone of the first, even if it does seem a little dated and tame now.
Still, both flicks were definitely successful--and then they took another turn with the third one. For one, the budget was almost doubled from the previous one--the first in particular had an almost grindhouse sensibility to it, making it all the more jarring to go the much more elaborate sets, environments, and costumes of what was Beyond Thunderdome. Not only that, the films had established themselves enough to start attracting guest stars--none other than Tina 'What's Love Got To Do With It' Turner. Did she prove Simply the Best, or would you rather get kicked in the Nutbush City Limits? Thankfully, she turned out pretty darn cool here.
The film does actually set itself up nicely--the cinematography has kicked itself up a notch, the vehicles look more detailed, and it's not long before we get introduced to the main setting of Bartertown. Gibson as Max has grown his hair out wildly, making him look like how he probably did in that period about a decade ago were he was essentially rummaging through dumpsters in Hollywood while muttering very nasty things about minorities. Anyway, the budget increase shows nicely here, with the sets of Bartertown being very detailed and well-shot, particularly the underworld where, well, they harvest pig-shit for power.
That's another nice little touch you get from series director George Miller, preceding the expertly conveyed worldbuilding we'd get thirty years later in Fury Road--other such films would never bother to explain where the actual logistics of these post-nuclear societies come from, but here, not only is it made clear, but it's part of the plot. Turns out the pigshit operation is run by MasterBlaster, an iconic duo of the intelligent but diminutive Master (Angelo Rossitto) riding atop the muscled and leather-covered Blaster. We get into the power plays of Bartertown, with Max being essentially hired by Turner's Aunty Entity to push things in her favor. Things go wrong, and we get introduced to the next seminal trademark of the film--the Thunderdome itself!
It is pretty darn fun seeing Max struggle against the lumbering Blaster in what's essentially a coliseum built from scrap, with bungee ropes and killing implements aplenty, and the chants of the crowd will stick in your head (another nice touch by Miller--what better way to codify the laws in a land like this, than with rhyming mantras?) Two men must enter, and one must indeed leave! While Blaster falls, Max however is exiled from Bartertown into the desert, going from one predicament to another.
This is where the film starts to stumble. We veer essentially into a completely different story as Max stumbles on a colony of children living in an oasis where a crashed airplane ended up. The children are bent on going to a promised land based on their interpretation of what scant information on the old world they have left; it's not bad, per se, but honestly, I would rather see more of Master and Aunty Entitie. Now, it feels like, I dunno, one of the weaker Spielberg films?
The resultant quest and ploys by Max to get the children to safety--and this is also a rather jarring turn from the Max who was very slow to help out a whole colony of bandit-oppressed townsfolk in the prior film--are also just kind of okay. We return to Bartertown, we get a slightly limp chase with trains, planes, and automobiles, and Aunty just sort of smiles and waves Max off at the end even after the damage he caused. We end on an impressive shot of a ruined Sydney where the kids end up, once again showing off the boosted production value, but it leaves you wanting a bit more.
So, how does Beyond Thunderdome hold up? See it for the first half, but hold in your expectations after that. There is definitely a certain charm to the more memorable elements, so I guess I'll say I most certainly don't hate it. As for comparing it to the rest of the original films? As I mentioned, it's kind of hard to so, as each one is markedly different from the other. That's actually kind of cool, in my view, tying into the interpretation that Miller offered that these stories are really folk stories of the legendary Max wandering the wastelands.
However, we also won't bring in Fury Road, since that just wouldn't be fair. That one, now is a true action masterpiece that annihilates your senses and blasts you with the nitro-powered glory of cinematic magnificence--even if a very loose remake of the second film.
Either way, regardless of who run bartertown, or whether you bust a deal, Beyond Thunderdome isn't the best, but it has its moments, and you might get a chuckle out of it. Next up on Mildly Contested Sequels--it's a very different sort of fictional lawman, with Robocop 2.
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