Sequels are seldom better than originals. It's a truism. Yet here it isn't true, and on many levels. We get a Western style of plot, with Max as a mysterious and bitter stranger who slowly learns to care once more as he saves an oppressed community from bandits. And it's all done very well, with an assured and charismatic performance from Mel Gibson but with even relatively minor characters feeling nuanced and human. It's well-shot. It is, at its basics, simply a very well-made Western, only set in the outback of New South Wales in the post-apocalyptic future.
And it's this latter thing, more than the nuts and bolts, that makes the film so influential- a post-apocalyptic future where civilisation has broken down and only isolated communities exist, fighting over what remains of food, petrol and what is left of advanced technology. This is made cooler by a punk aesthetic, with the baddies wearing mohicans, masks and other cool accoutrements. All this, along with the desert landscape and cannibalised vehicles, makes for a deeply cool aesthetic. And yet... the first Mad Max wasn't like this, was it? Yes, there had been some sort of event and yes, things were a bit Wild West. But there were things such as a police force, property rights, a legal system. Not here. Indeed, the opening scene retcons the first film even as it shows clips from it, narrating a nuclear apocalypse and showing us a far wilder world.
This adds pathos; civilisation has gone, and so much knowledge, culture and tech will die with this generation. It's a rather emotional moment where Max shows a simple music box to a feral kid who represents a generation which will not remember such things, will not remember so many things. This is a fine, fine film- a superior action film that functions brilliantly in that capacity yet which, with only broad strokes of world building, hints at so much more.
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