Tagarchief: FilmDungeon

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: George Miller, George Ogilvie
Written by: Terry Hayes, George Miller
Cast: Mel Gibson, Tina Turner, Bruce Spence, Adam Cockburn

Year / Country: 1985, Australia
Running Time: 107 mins.

Mel Gibson returns for one last turn as Max Rockatansky, although he doesn’t need his last name anymore. Bruce Spence returns as well as pilot Jedediah. New in the cast is Tina Turner who also sings the opening song. In Mad Max, society was collapsing. In Mad Max 2, we were looking at a full blown apocalypse. In Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, civilization is trying to re-establish itself. Aunty Entity (Turner) has founded Barter Town, a desert town that runs on a new energy source: methane producing pigs.

Max finds himself vehicle-less, so he walks to Barter Town where he is forced to participate in a bloody cage fight. After surviving, he is marooned in the desert where he is found by a tribe of children who believe he is a sort of Messias. They go looking for salvation in the wrong direction (Barter Town), and eventually we get the massive desert pursuit we’ve been waiting for. This time it involves a train and an airplane and it’s quite a spectacular finale.

Unfortunately, the preceding three quarters of the movie are disappointing. Visually, it is well done, but somehow I didn’t really connect with the characters. In the first two films, the character building was not that strong either, but there it was compensated with a fantastic atmosphere and amazingly shot action scenes. In Beyond Thunderdome, there is only the final chase scene, but there is not enough ‘good stuff’ in the hour and a half leading up to it.

One image I want to praise though, which is the shot of the children climbing on a deserted airplane in the desert. This feels like a very accurate vision of where the world is currently heading. Yet, what Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome also makes clear at the end is that there is always hope to be found.

Rating:

Biography: George Miller (1945) is an Australian filmmaker, best known for his Mad Max franchise. In 1971, George attended a film workshop at Melbourne University where he met Byron Kennedy, with whom he formed a friendship and production partnership, until Kennedy’s death in 1983 (Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is dedicated to him). Together they made the first Mad Max movie in 1979 for a budget of 400.000 Australian dollars. It earned 100 million dollars at the box office worldwide and became the most profitable film of all time (the record was not broken until The Blair Witch Project 20 years later). Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) earned Oscar nominations for best film and director. The latest entry in the series – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – will be released in May 2024.

Filmography (a selection): Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022), Mad Max: Fury Road (12015), Happy Feet 2 (2011), Happy Feet (2006), Babe: Pig in the City (1998), Lorenzo’s Oil (1992), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983, segment), The Dismissal (1993, TV episode), Mad Max 2 (1983), Mad Max (1979), The Devil in Evening Dress (1975, short)

Biography: George Ogilvie (1931 – 2020) was born on 5 March 1931 in Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia. He was a director and actor, known mostly for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), He died on 5 April 2020 in New South Wales, Australia.

Filmography: The Dismissal (1983, TV), Bodyline (1984, TV), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985, co-dir), Short Changed (1986), The Place at the Coast (1987), The Shiralee (1987, TV-episodes), Touch the Sun: Princess Kate (1988, TV-movie), The Australians (1988, TV-episode), The Crossing (1990), The Battlers (1994, TV), The Feds: Deception (1995, TV-movie), The Feds: Seduction (1995, TV-movie), The Last of the Ryans (1997, TV-movie), The Blue Healers (2002-2006, TV-episodes)

Mad Max

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: George Miller
Written by: James McCausland, George Miller, Byron Kennedy
Cast: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne

Year / Country: 1979, Australia
Running Time: 88 mins.

With the newest entry Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga approaching fast in 2024, it was time to revisit the old trilogy.

In the first Mad Max from 1979, we find ourselves in the early stage of an apocalypse. Australia (never mentioned as such) is suffering from ecocide, lawlessness and scarcity of fuel. The poorly funded Main Force Patrol is still active and tries to bring down the bikers that terrorize the highways.

The movie starts with a bunch of patrolmen who are chasing down a couple of psychotics and we immediately get a good sense of what we’re in for: very fast cars, dangerous stunts and major car crashes. We get introduced to the cool, leather outfit and shades wearing cop Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson). Where others fail, he gets the job done. But after he dispatches the psychotic cop killer Nightrider, a gang of biker outlaws come after him and kill his wife and child. Now Max goes out for revenge and turns into a lone warrior who scavenges the barren waste land.

Prior to his film career, director George Miller served as a medical doctor in Sydney, stationed in a hospital emergency room where he encountered numerous horror-like injuries and fatalities similar to those portrayed in the film. Additionally, his upbringing in rural Queensland exposed him to numerous car accidents, and he tragically lost at least three friends to such incidents during his teenage years. So that’s clearly where his inspiration came from.

Miller is still developing his trademark style in this movie. The high speed chases, crashes and stunts are looking great considering the low budget. He employs innovative camera techniques to achieve the distinctive Mad Max look that he would refine in the sequels. It’s a highly original movie and within the carsploitation genre an absolute classic.

Rating:

Biography: George Miller (1945) is an Australian filmmaker, best known for his Mad Max franchise. In 1971, George attended a film workshop at Melbourne University where he met Byron Kennedy, with whom he formed a friendship and production partnership, until Kennedy’s death in 1983 (Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is dedicated to him). Together they made the first Mad Max movie in 1979 for a budget of 400.000 Australian dollars. It earned 100 million dollars at the box office worldwide and became the most profitable film of all time (the record was not broken until The Blair Witch Project 20 years later). Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) earned Oscar nominations for best film and director. The latest entry in the series – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – will be released in May 2024.

Filmography (a selection): Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022), Mad Max: Fury Road (12015), Happy Feet 2 (2011), Happy Feet (2006), Babe: Pig in the City (1998), Lorenzo’s Oil (1992), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983, segment), The Dismissal (1993, TV episode), Mad Max 2 (1983), Mad Max (1979), The Devil in Evening Dress (1975, short)

Dungeon Classics #33: Excalibur

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

Excalibur (1981, UK, USA)

Director: John Boorman
Cast: Nigel Terry, Nicol Williamson, Helen Mirren, Nicholas Clay
Running Time: 140 mins.

For the ultimate film about the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, look no further than John Boorman’s Excalibur. It has everything from dark magic to romance, to sword fights. It was filmed completely in Ireland, and the sets and costumes (lots of very heavy and impractical armor) are fantastically realized. Storywise, it incorporates familiar elements, like the sword in the stone, Lancelot’s romance with Guenevere, and Perceval’s search for the Holy Grail, but also new stories such as Arthur fathering a bastard son with his half sister Morgana who wants to destroy him. The cast is very good with early performances by Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, and Helen Mirren. But it is Nicol Williamson who steals the show as Merlin the Necromancer.

The Verdict: The Creator

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

In 2016, director Gareth Edwards delivered Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first Star Wars movie that was not part of the main series. In terms of cinematography, locations, and visual effects, it was certainly successful, but the film failed to move me. I had exactly the same experience with Edwards’ latest film The Creator, which is about a future war between humanity and artificial intelligence. The movie, which was shot on beautiful locations in Thailand and contains Oscar-nominated special effects, certainly looks amazing. However, the story about an army sergeant (John David Washington, who increasingly looks and especially sounds like his father Denzel) who is on the run with a powerful AI child made no emotional impact on me whatsoever. I didn’t care whether humanity or AI would ultimately win the war. SPOILER: The contrast between what I felt when the Death Star was blown up in the original Star Wars and the destruction of space station Nomad at the end of The Creator could not be greater. A shame really, because the potential was certainly there.

The Creator is now available on Disney Plus

The verdict: to stream or not to stream? Not to stream