BEFORE: I suppose after watching "Terminator Salvation" it would make the most sense for me to watch "Avatar" - futuristic setting, starring Sam Worthington, and Sigourney Weaver (tying in with the "Aliens" movies as a bonus). Problem is, I don't have a copy. I could have run out today and bought one, but that sort of runs counter to the spirit of this project, which is to watch the films already in my collection, particularly the classics which have gone unwatched. So I will watch "Avatar"...but in the future!
So, I'll finish off another franchise that I fell out of touch with. Yes, it's time once again for post-apocalyptic films. I covered this topic last year, by watching films like "Children of Men", "A Boy and His Dog", and "Waterworld". So these will be similar films that I've acquired since then.
As the Jim Steinman song goes, "The Future Ain't What It Used To Be". Back in the 1950's and 60's, people's impression of the future was that it would include flying cars, manned spaceflight to other planets, and cures for all diseases. What happened? Now our vision of the future is all about global warming, melting icecaps, and plagues like swine flu and monkey pox...unless our alien or robot overlords find some solution to those problems.
THE PLOT: Mad Max becomes a pawn in a decadent oasis of technological society, and when exiled, becomes the deliverer of a colony of children.
AFTER: This movie started out with such promise - our hero enters a backwater town in the middle of the dystopian post-apocalypse desert, and gets tricked into fighting in the Thunderdome, which is like a WWE steel cage match, but with weapons, and the combatants are in these cool bunjee harnesses so they can jump around the dome. This match was like the highlight of the film, but it was much too short.
Max breaks the rules of the fight, so his punishment is to spin the wheel of (mis-)fortune. I thought for a second that the punishment might be another Thunderdome match, but no such luck - it's exile to the desert.
Max finds a colony of children lost in the desert who have been awaiting rescue - and come on, he's the film's hero...what do you THINK he's going to do - walk away? This leads to another of those great chase scenes through the desert with those cool patchwork Franken-vehicles that explode whenever they hit something. It's thrilling, but much too similar to the desert chases that rocked "Mad Max" and "Road Warrior". Still, I suppose a "Mad Max" film without a desert chase would be like a "Star Wars" film without a lightsaber battle.
Speaking of "Star Wars", I realized that the actor who played Jedediah, the pilot (and the only actor besides Mel Gibson who carried over from "Road Warrior") had a small role in "Star Wars: Episode VI" - Bruce Spence played Tion Medon, who was the character talking to Obi-Wan on the planet Utapau (sinkhole planet) and alerted him to General Grievous' presence on the planet. And I've got his autograph on my wall - cool!
And just like the "Terminator" franchise (and every franchise these days) there's supposedly another sequel in the works, called "Fury Road". But Mel Gibson's not attached at the moment - without him, how good could it be?
RATING: 6 out of 10 canteens
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