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The Road Warrior

The Road Warrior

List Price: $14.97
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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Wait for the special edition
Review: We all know it's a great film, so no need to comment on that. The DVD is terrible. The film and sound quality are barely better than VHS, it is presented in fullscreen format which reduces the brilliance of the cinematography, and there are no decent special features to speak of. If you really feel the urge to see it, rent it, and wait for the special edition which I'm sure will come out eventually. If the MadMax special edition is any indicator, it should be a great SE DVD.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great action flik!!!
Review: Hard to believe this film is over 20 years old. I recently watched it again on DVD, and although certain aspects of it seem a little bit dated given the movie technology of today...still the chase scenes are the finest ever put the film. Whenever someone goes flying in the air, or a vehicle crashes head on with another, it's ALL REAL!!! No computer graphics in this one, this is the way it's supposed to be. I can spot a digitally altered scene a mile away and this pure action film making at it's best!!! A true cult classic that deserves it's admiration and respect.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: After a dozen viewings, still one of my favorite films
Review: I first saw this film in the spring of 1981, immediately after hearing Siskiel and Ebert rave about this follow up to another Australian film I hadn't yet seen. I was game, and the second I saw it I was hooked. I had seen movies before that dealt with the world "after they dropped the bomb," but never before had any of those films had such style and attitude. It wasn't until I saw THE MATRIX in 1999 that I was to see another futuristic film that would have as much of edge. Even today, this movie has a power and primal simplicity that few can match.

Storywise, the film had a great deal in common with other films--especially Westerns--that feature an anti-social loner as the central hero. Mel Gibson's "Mad" Max Rockatansky (a role he will be reprising next year in MAX MAX IV) is almost a copy of Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name, except that in this instance we know his name and we know something about what made him made from the first film. Mel Gibson makes this movie work. His laconic self-isolation, his cynicism, his lack of anything except a grim determination to continue to survive and find another liter of petrol gives the film a magnificent bleakness. To be honest, it isn't quite easy to tell why he is the good buy and not just as bad as the gang of the Humongous, why he isn't as bad as Vernon Welles's Wez. But we accept it, and in the end he turns out to have been on the right side.

I heard George Miller interviewed once about the music used in the film. Despite the punkish look that nearly every character in the film assumes, the music is bland, uninteresting orchestral music, just barely above the level of Musak. According to Miller, this was intentional. He felt that in some movies, the music draws attention away from the action, so he used music that was almost impossible to focus upon, forcing all the attention back on to what was happening onscreen. Oddly enough, since then the music has become more interesting to me than it had before.

I know this is a bit of heresy to hardcore Mad Max fans, but of the three films made so far, this one remains by far my favorite. The third was watchable, but not really very good, and the first one, while good, lacked the simplicity of story that I think makes this second film so great. Also, I find the undubbed version to be almost impossible to make out at times, and the dubbed version sounds far too silly. But maybe I prefer the second because I saw it first, and so many times since.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: authentic!
Review: One of the things I like best about this edition is that the voice-over at the beginning is the original Australian accent. I have come across versions of the film where they dubbed over with an American accent and it's distracting and out of place. Same goes with the original Mad Max - to truly appreciate that one, you want the original Australian dialogue.
This is the movie that made me fall in love with Mel Gibson once upon a time. It's not one of those movies that falls easily into "guy thing" or "chick flick" categories. Worth catching!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: RUNAWAY FLIGHT SIMULATOR!
Review: Before Riggs, before Braveheart, there was Max. The Road Warrior is one of the best, if not the best action film in history, Austrailian or otherwise. Sequel to the blockbuster Mad Max, this is the pivotal road rage flick. Set in post-nuclear holocaust Austrailia, Max is a wandering survivalist who ends up defending a group of refiners from the savage Humongus. The chase scenes are some of the best ever and the crashes make you want to walk to work for a week. The characters are memorable and the story keeps you asking for more, and you get it. Mel Gibson performes incredibly as the merciless Max, who's character has evolved into a cold, indifferent persona, thinking only of himself. The film begins perfectly with the narrative opening and conlcudes in a race for survival in one of film history's most exiting chases. Generally, The Road Warrior is a welcome treat for movie fans around the world. Nothing quite like it has been made before or since.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the best post-apocalypse movies ever
Review: There are certain movies that become classics the moment they are released. "The Road Warrior" is such a movie.

While not necessary to understand this movie, it is helpful to watch "Mad Max" to understand how Mel Gibson came to be the person he is in this movie. In "Mad Max" we see Mel's family brutalized by a motor cycle gang in a post-apocalyptic Australia. After exacting his revenge on the gang, he drives off into the sunset, literally.

"The Road Warrior" shows Max still essentially a nice guy, but interested in continuing to drive into the sunset. At the beginning of the movie Max is in serious need of a gas station, and finds one in the middle of the desert, besieged by a gang of hot rodders led by an apparently deformed Humungus.

The story line is simple. The people at the desert refinery want to pack up their gasoline and move off to a place where there are more people, food, and perhaps some remnant of civilization. Max wants a tank of gas. In order for the desert people to look for the better place, they need a semi tractor to carry off their gasoline. Max still wants his tank of gas. Here is where the two needs meet. In exchange for helping the refinery people, Max will get all the gas he can carry.

Max seeks out and finds a semi tractor, and manages, as part of one of the best chase scenes of all time, to get the tractor back to the refinery. With a variety of violent interludes, comes the time to move the gas, which involves another, even better chase scene that lasts pretty much to the end of the movie. The last chase scene is best experienced in surround sound with the biggest screen you can find. Turn the sound up.

Each incident in the chase is carefully choreographed so that the viewer won't miss a minute of action, of which there is a lot from the time that everyone bails out from the refinery. Arrows, guns, car (if you can call some of these behemoths cars) wrecks, creative death, all ending up with a few of the bad guys remaining, a heavily injured Max, and the refinery people heading off to find some semblance of civilization.

This review does not do this movie, which was one of the movies that launched Mel Gibson's carrer, justice. This movie is one that would take a book to describe. It's easier to watch it. One of the best and most potentially realistic of all post-apocalyptic movies, this movie is science fiction as it can be: well-plotted, logically sequenced. One of the best science fiction movies of all time, a must have for the serious fan, and a definite 5 star movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Superior Sequel
Review: Everything fell into place when they made this one. The level of intensity was turned up a notch for this superior sequel. They obviously cashed in on the success of MAX and spent more $$ on effects, costumes, vehicles, etc. Truck chase at the end is actually superior to truck chase in RAIDERS.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: As good as MM
Review: This is As good as "Mad Max", this film has Tons of action! wild stunts, great acting and Max is BACK! I LOVE his car in this one!! it rocks!!! and the humor is great in this film!
Before she was Zhaan on Farscape , was the "Warrior Woman" in the Road Warrior! This film is a must have for max fans also!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Top Ten Movie
Review: I only buy DVDs that I know I can watch over and over again and Road Warrior is one of them. Whereas Mad Max is raw and simple in its revenge theme, Road Warrior is a bit more complex: the embittered lone-survivor of this vast, cruel wasteland is still a man who has some human compassion in him but is reluctant to feel lest his survival instincts become compromised. Beneath his stone-faced reserve you can see he struggles with this as the little urchin-boy vies for Max's attention and the clan he helps to defend against The Humungus desperately seek his help. They are reminders of real people, like his wife and son he lost earlier to the road warriors.

But this is an action film at its best and even knowing the outcome the road battle scenes are still awesome and the evil warriors, looking like your worst nightmare motorcylce gang, are still scary as ever. And what more appropriate commodity to be fighting over than gasoline? This film will never feel dated for its futuristic outlook where oil becomes gold.

Personally, this is my favorite Mel Gibson role-hands down. He's just too cool, too intense and a character you can't forget. Mad Max and Road Warrior are definite buys. The last of this Outback trilogy, Beyond The Thunderdome, is a bit too over the top for me-it just feels too over produced- but I'd still recommend it to see what you think.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: cousinpaco's top action: #3
Review: Most people consider "The Godfather, Part II" the best sequel of all time. They're wrong.

"The Road Warrior" is a stand-alone followup to "Mad Max," which was a pretty lame movie. Taking what worked from the first movie (explosive car-chases), ditching the rest, and adding elements of classic Westerns, "the Road Warrior" blows the first film off the pavement.

Mel Gibson returns as Max, who has become a laconic wraith wandering a war-ravaged wasteland in search of gasoline. He must choose sides when he comes across a refinery under seige by a band of pillaging maniacs. His journey from mercenary to savior provides the haunting, inspiring subtext for the film, while the spectacular stunts keep your eyes fixed on the screen.

Best moment: When Max hangs out the door of a tanker-truck, blasting through the windshield of a pirate in pursuit.

Give this DVD a try--you'll forget you're only watching a movie.


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