In the post-apocalyptic Australian wasteland, a cynical drifter agrees to help a small, gasoline-rich community escape a horde of bandits.In the post-apocalyptic Australian wasteland, a cynical drifter agrees to help a small, gasoline-rich community escape a horde of bandits.In the post-apocalyptic Australian wasteland, a cynical drifter agrees to help a small, gasoline-rich community escape a horde of bandits.
- Awards
- 8 wins & 10 nominations
- Pappagallo
- (as Mike Preston)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe dog used in the film, named simply "Dog", was obtained from a local dog pound and trained to perform in the film. Because the sound of the engines upset him (and in one incident, caused him to relieve himself in the car), he was fitted with special earplugs. After filming was complete, he was adopted by one of the camera operators.
- GoofsWhen Max carries the 4 metal cans full of gasoline to retrieve the truck, the cans appear empty by the way they are swaying back and forth from the pole he's using to carry them. In addition, when the gyro captain drops them to the ground once they reach the autogyro the cans make a hollow-sounding noise, also indicating that they are empty.
- Quotes
[first lines]
Narrator: My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos... ruined dreams... this wasted land. But most of all, I remember The Road Warrior. The man we called "Max." To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time... when the world was powered by the black fuel... and the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now... swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war, and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men. On the roads it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed... men like Max... the warrior Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything... and became a shell of a man... a burnt-out, desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again.
- Alternate versionsSlightly censored when first released in the US, but released without cuts abroad. The Australian version has several more seconds of Wez pulling the arrow out of his arm, and a few more seconds of Wez's partner on the ground with the boomerang embedded in his head. This footage was absent on the US VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD releases, but is present in the US Blu-ray release.
- ConnectionsEdited from Mad Max (1979)
Ramping up things a hundredfold from the original Mad Max that featured a few car crashes amongst its post-apocalyptic wasteland adventure featuring Mel Gibson's ex-cop Max Rockatansky, Road Warrior was at the time of production the biggest budgeted Australian film of all time that saw Miller and his creative team enact carnage unlike we'd ever seen done on a local production, that also was an inspiration and benchmark for the action genre in the years to come.
Often regarded as one of the best examples of an action experience committed to screen thanks to its endless barrage of car-fueled stunts and mayhem (Terminator director James Cameron sighted the film as an inspiration to his action work) and arguably only bettered when Miller's long time coming Fury Road finally roared onto screens a few years ago, Road Warrior is powered by the most barebones of plots you're likely to see in a feature but that matters little when the enthusiasm and eye candy on show is what you came to see.
Barely uttering more than a few lines throughout the entirety of the film, the at the time still up and coming Gibson doesn't get much too do overall here and is far less charismatic than he would come to be known for in efforts like Lethal Weapon and Braveheart but in many ways that's the joy of the Mad Max character, with a simple man merely trying to survive an anything but simple time and place, a place where marauding bandits like Kjell Nilsson's Humungus commands running the barren dust swept lands of Australia as they seek out death and destruction and the much sought after gasoline.
Rampaging along at a brisk pace that just passes the 90 minute marker, Road Warrior isn't at all interested in nuances or moments of reflection with Miller hellbent on ensuring that most of the films screen time is action first and questions and answers last and in an age where many modern films attach unneeded baggage and filler to their stories in hope people see deeper things in their flash and pizzazz, Road Warrior is still a joy to behold today as we witness and partake in organized chaos at its finest in the land down under.
Final Say -
There's not a lot happening under the hood of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior but the insanely choregraphed and orchestrated car-founded action is still a cinematic thrill to this day that was largely unmatched for years until Fury Road changed the game again.
4 gyrocopters out of 5.
- eddie_baggins
- Sep 7, 2021
Antiheroes We Love AND Hate
Antiheroes We Love AND Hate
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $3,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $23,667,907
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $2,527,864
- May 23, 1982
- Gross worldwide
- $23,668,406
- Runtime1 hour 36 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1
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