Filmmaker reacts to Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) for the FIRST TIME! 

I have a feeling he's still pretty MAD. Want to vote on what I should watch next? Click here! www.patreon.com/jamesvscinema Re-watching Blade tomorrow! Enjoy the day!

Cult Classic? Hidden gem? No! This movie is a legend. Primarily because a little Australian production company did a car chase scene that made all Hollywood car chases look pathetic in comparison.

"How many dogs are they gonna kill in this?" If it makes you feel better (and it should), the dog in Mad Max 2 was found at a local pound, scheduled to be put down. He was rescued, trained up for filming, and then retired to a life of luxury with one of the film's stuntmen (after a brief stint on a ranch owned by the stunt coordinator).

This is the Mad Max movie to most audiences from back in the day. 99% of American audiences hadn't seen the first movie when they watched this. When this movie came out, it really did revolutionize the film industry. It set a new bar for practical effects and action movies in general. This is also that the movie that made Mel Gibson a star, he was always in demand after this.

In Fury Road they basically just took the final car chase/fight scene of this movie and said, "we could make a whole movie with just that stuff!" It's epic.

Looking forward to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The film gets a lot of crap, but it's a banger and we all know it. There isn't a single bad Mad Max film.

I love that Max is this kind of mythological figure you’d tell stories of around the campfire or something.

This is THE Mad Max movie to me. The first one was entertaining and different from most other movies from that time but this one has the real Mad Max wasteland world and the Mad Max character has hit the apex (see what I did there?). As for finding beauty in this wasteland, yes. Living in a wasteland? No. I'd enjoy taking a big 4x4 loaded with food, water and other essentials and go out there and explore (and drive like a Mad Max) for a few days only to return to my comfy apartment and hit the couch to watch a movie. And yes, if the world turned into a wasteland, the women would unfortunately become prey to males who've reverted to their most primitive instincts due to the environment and their survival instincts. It will vary between individuals but those instincts are still buried down there in our deepest part of our brains. :/

I like how George Miller made everyone of these films in a way where you don't have to see the previous ones to know what is going on. He also has Max speak as little as possible.

Best of the series imo. Saw this when I was 9 in 82 still holds a place in my favorite films.

Allegedly the main villain "Humongous" was originally supposed to be Max's friend Jim Goose from the first film. They decided against it but you can see hints of the idea in his burn-scarred appearance and personal items connected to law enforcement.

RIP to the last of the Interceptors, an iconic cinematic car. The revival of the Interceptor in Fury Road is why I believe they're all just legends about Max. His car is just another character who shows up here and there in the stories, like the gyro captain.

The first Mad Max was a cult hit, made on a shoestring, and so was, at that time, the most profitable film ever made. Road Warrior was a bona fide international hit. The budget was much larger, so the ratio of budget to box office was different, but it made a lot of money, and turned Mel Gibson into a bankable star.

My mother did NOT want me seeing this movie, I was 9 when it came out. I had a friend who's dad was a car junkie. Saw the movie with them. The grounding was worth it. This movie fueled my imagination for YEARS. Matchbox Car battles galore. Thunderdome will always be my favorite. But I love this movie as much now as I did when I first saw it! Also - the continuity is amazing. Max retains the affects of the wounds he receives in this movie into the next.

When I was in college my roommate would get drunk sometimes and he would take his shirt off, stand on his bed and do the whole Lord Humungous speech. It was funny as hell.

This came out theatrically in the summer of 82 here in the states, best movie summer ever. ET, Poltergeist, Conan the Barbarian, Tron, Star Trek II, Rocky III , Fast Times, Blade Runner and especially The Thing. It was a great time to be 14.

One of the greatest action films ever! I love saying, "I'll drive that tanker." My Australian accent is crap, but my friends know what I mean. Love it.

Until 'Fury Road' this was widely viewed as the best action film ever made. It's Clint Eastwood's 'man with no name' mashed up into the apocalypse. 'He lives now only in my memory' is up there with the 'tears in rain' speech from 'Blade Runner'. The narration from the beginning be so indistinct and using generic footage is because the narrator didn't experience those events personally. The narrator is very old, and may not be a 'reliable narrator', this is the moment when events are becoming myth. It just so thoughtful and clever. A brutal sci fi classic.

This isn’t a hidden gem, as it was a success at the time, though I’m guessing a lot of younger folks haven’t seen it. 1982, when this came out, was one of the best years of film. That, and 1999. Both years are full of highly influential bangers

The vehicle they were flying is called a Gyrocopter. You can do a search for it.

This movie is iconic, it's like a mission in Fallout.

I love that after the first film, Max may be the central character, but they are not *his* stories per se. He becomes more and more like a vehicle to wrap some else's story around, like a traditional folk hero or recurring character in a tall tale.

Couple of fun facts: the movie was shot in sequence to ensure they had all their footage before destroying the compound set and tanker truck. 21:04 Yes the grass is there the whole time (in the background around 9:56), but I think this is the only shot where it's up close. There was an abnormal amount of rain during filming which may have made the grass more vibrant here than earlier. 22:30 This was a real accident. The stunt man's legs clipped the car instead of flying cleanly over it, sending him spinning out of control. He survived with only a broken leg. The look of Guts from Berzerk was indeed influenced by Max from Road Warrior, with author Kentaro Miura also likening them as "a dark hero burning for revenge; rabid and guided by anger".

Interesting that you wondered who 'Mohawk Guy' was before 'the fall'. I remember reading somewhere years ago that when they were writing the story that every single character,(good guys, bad guys, everybody) got a back story. Would probably make for some interesting reading if you could find those notes.

Love this film. I see Mad Max less as an action series and more like a tragedy of man. All these people at one time or another in this world may have just been everyday people. Working at a supermarket or a bank, or just every day people who lost it all and survival is all that is left, both sides. It all sums up for me in the speech Humangus gives where he says the line "I understand your pain. We all lost someone we loved." All these poor souls are broken.

These were HUUUGE in the 80's!!.. as a kid then I and my friends soaked them up big time then. And tried re-creating them on our BMX bikes all the time. How we all lived to adulthood is beyond me.

Shoutout to my fellow Swede Kjell Nilsson, playing the buff and masked main bad guy in this movie.

It's a cult film for sure, but it wasn't obscure per say, it was on TV all the time in the 80's/90', it's the definitive post-apocalyptic film, and point of reference for other media, The Simpsons reference it multiple times.

I was 14 when this came out. A lot of people didint see it . But the ones that did new this was it. It has is has effected the way we see the apocalypse since it was made. Not jest in film but in all of fiction and story telling over all.

At the time it came out, this and Raiders of the Lost Ark were the two most action movies made up to date. I loved it when I first watched it on home video in 1982 and still love it today. I think Fury Road is excellent at recreating a lot of the excitement I felt watching this, but there's only one Road Warrior and I'll always a place in my heart for it. Here's a bit of trivia: Lord Humungous was originally supposed to be Goose, Max's biker cop friend who gets burned, from the original Mad Max. He isn't, that was changed in later drafts, but there are still clues: He's horribly burned (notice he has no ears), he wears a neckbrace because his neck is broken, and much of his gang is comprised of ex-MFP Police Officers.

This is my absolute favorite mad max film, even including the recent one. That plot twist at the end is amazing.

I saw Mad Max when I was in junior high. I think they must have re-run it in theaters before Road Warrior came out. It was a long time ago :P Anyway.. As a GenX-er I think it came out at a pivotal time. Older generations were told that nuclear war would destroy everything. I mean yeah, duck and cover, but the impression was that everything would end. GenX was brought up with science talking about nuclear winter and that some people would survive and, more important here, about what it would be like. Mad Max was when international society was gone, like the fringes of the world survived but were cut off. Road Warrior was in the badlands left over with radiation and anarchy. At that specific time, around Star Wars (Reagan edition) and Land of Confusion on MTV, you were pondering whether you wanted to survive a nuclear war or not. This wasn't a secret cult classic. I think it spoke to a generation in a lot of ways. There may be a lot of people who don't know about it (I think I ran the risk of the VHS breaking 😊) but there are a lot of people that probably haven't watched Aliens (another awesome sequel that's aged a bit). Road Warrior is definitely my favorite from the series. Each has it's merits and in each, Max evolves on the edge of anarchy, and overrunning the corners into madness and back again. In Mad Max he lost everything and became what he originally fought. In Road Warrior he was deciding whether it was worth caring about anything anymore. Pretty apt for GenX at the time.

Nice James. So quickly after Mad Max too. A great sequel. In many ways, a more highly focused version of the first movie, favouring all the interesting film techniques used therein. An original classic really.

this was one of the big influences on post apocalyptic genres. a forgotten gem from the past is "Radioactive Dreams"

This film was my introduction to the franchise and my favorite of the four. It was after viewing this movie that I went back to see the original Mad Max (1). I loved the vehicles, especially the gyrocopter. As a kid, one of my neighbors had a gyrocopter that he flew over the area farms. I loved the post-apocalyptic aesthetic and the indie-film style. I found Mad Max (3): Beyond Thunderdome to be too commercial for my taste.

As kids, this movie was forever in the rotation of movies. We had such fun movies growing up and this was one of our favorite films. Top tier 80's movie.

I've watched a ton of movie reviews on youtube. This is probably my all time favorite. Watching your reactions brought me back to when I first watched it when I was a kid. Thank you for actually paying attention and catching the little things about the store, lore, and atmosphere.

road warrior is my favorite of the series...

I can't tell you how happy I am that you watched the second movie right away. I can't wait to see your reaction to the third one. Again, a lot of people call it the weakest of the three, but I think it's the most quotable. It has some incredible characters and dialogue, great humor, and really builds on the ideas started in The Road Warrior of this whole story becoming a mythic tale. I think the reason Fury Road was so good is because it built on all of the ideas from the first three movies and perfected it.

I stopped counting after having watched this film 500 times . Never got old . Revolutionized so many tropes used in filmmaking . Spawned a LOT of imitators but never matched as far as style and design . The art director , Graham Walker's hand was instantaneously recognized by me when he started working on The Walking Dead even before seeing the credits ; he provided such a visceral and distinctive look - all because of The Road Warrior . If you liked this film then you owe it to your craft to check out Akira Kurosawa's " Yojimbo " . Remember also , the protagonist doesn't need to speak - they only need to say what's important .

This movie is EPIC. Even after all these years this movie still ROCKS..!

Man when Max leans out and levels the sawed-off shotgun and blows the driver’s head off…arguably top 10 badass moments in cinema

One of my favorite movies of all time. I've been watching this movie almost every year since I was 6 years old. I'm 37 now.

Just FYI, "The Road Warrior" is not a "hidden gem"; it was a huge success at the time and is one of the most well-known and beloved action films in movie history. There's never been anything hidden about it. They teach it in film classes. It's a masterpiece. One interesting fact about the film: the opening montage (and the title) was made specifically for American cinemas. Everywhere else in the world, it was called, "Mad Max 2" - but Warner Bros. wasn't sure American audiences would know about the first "Mad Max".

I was 12 when my cousin and I sneaked into the local theater to watch this. From then until now it has been my favorite movie ever.

This is just one of dozens of movies my dad showed me at all too young a age and I’m thankful he did every day. If he hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t be the cinephile I am now.

I've found the storytelling in the Mad Max Road Warrior, Beyond Thunderdome, and Fury Road is thematically similar to American Westerns. A hero emerges from the desert/wasteland and appears before a people/town in its time of need, encounters terrible hardships but ultimately saves the day before returning to the obscurity from whence he came. He's more folklore hero than an actual person in those films. He's central to the story he appears in but the story isn't necessarily about him outside of his struggles with his own morality at points and struggling against the film's antagonists. In Road Warrior the story he appears in is really the people of that small gas town; and it's told by the boy who worshipped him as a hero. In Thunderdome it's both the story of the people of Thunderdome and the children of the wasteland oasis awaiting their savior and the oppression of Barter-Town. In Fury Road the story is Furiosa's and Immortan Joe's wives and Max arrives to battle to save them. But in the end he always returns to wandering the wasteland regardless of what he's accomplished.

The scene where the motorcycle is chasing the tanker and it hits that wrecked car and you see the motorcycle rider do cartwheels through the air, that was an actual on-set accident during filming of the chase. The stuntman got wrecked too, as I recall he broke his collarbone and several other things. The cameras caught the whole thing and George Miller loved the shot so much that he kept it in the movie, even though it was not a stunt. I hope that stuntman got a crap-ton of money for that.

My dad was a movie projectionist when this movie was released, he would crank the sound up for that opening scene with the blower it was great

Thanks for reacting to this. I can’t believe more people don’t react to it.

A friend from work told me about this great movie on HBO called Mad Max The Road Warrior and I thought what a cheesy title. I finally watched it and was blown away.That was over 40 years ago and I have been an action movie fan ever since. I'm always impressed with your choices. In fact the first movie I watched on your channel was Apocalypto - directed by Mel Gibson! Great channel James.

This is one of my favorite films ever. My dad took me to the theater when I was 12 years old to see this film.

There's a fan theory that The Feral Kid is actually Max in Fury Road. I like that theory.

One of my all-time favourites. It's a perfect action/sci-fi/thriller. Best of the Mad Max series overall.

Weird trivia: The tough warrior woman was played by Virginia Hey, who later played Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan in Farscape.

I was working my first job at a Boy Scout summer camp when THE ROAD WARRIOR came out. A group of us went to town on our Saturday night off and saw this at the local theater. For the duration of the movie, we were no longer Boy Scouts... we were barbarians cheering big screen carnage. It was one the best movie-going experiences of my life at the time and I still love this movie.

The stunt at 22:30 was one that went badly wrong, Guy Norris was the stuntman and was meant to control his landing but he flipped uncontrollably and broke his leg on landing forcing him to leave set for the rest of the film. Fun fact, the Director was a doctor in a former life and grew up operating on the victims of car crashes in Queensland.

The first time I saw anything to do with Mad Max was a pre-release article in the Post magazine. Which was a colour Australian periodic magazine about our lifestyle, and it ran a promo of the up-coming film. It included a couple of action pics in the article that blew me away. When the film was released I was shattered to see it was R rated. I was only16 at the time, but as I was already getting served in pubs I figured me and a few mates could crack a cinema, no problems. The original Mad Max was like nothing I’d ever seen on a screen before. It really did change how action movies were made from then on. And Mad Max 2 took it to the next level by giving Hollywood a lesson in the action genre. They could be considered films that have a cult-type following, but the franchise also has an important place in cinematic history as a pivotal moment for action movies. Edit: You may not have noticed that Dean Semler was the cinematographer in Mad Max 2? He went on to do plenty in Hollywood and won an Oscar for his cinematography in Dances with Wolves.

I grew up near where they shot, we used to get held up by filming and it was fascinating looking at how dodgy some of the set dressings looked in real life compared to how they looked in the actual movie. Mel Gibson trained the dog to follow him around by having it tied to his leg while he walked around the local reserve army grounds where they were set up.

When this was brand-new, my friends and I saw it in a double bill with another post-apocalyptic S.F. movie, 175's "A Boy and His Dog". One of the best double-features you could imagine! And we saw it on one of Montreal's largest movie screens, in the Cinema V repertory theater. Is till consider "The Road Warrior" to be the best "Mad Max" flick, by far.

BREAK A DEAL FACE THE WHEEL. MASTER BLASTER RUNS BARTERTOWN. OPPS. NOT YET....

For those Farscape fans, the warrior woman, played by Virginia Hey, is Zhaan on Farscape.

There's a literary element. The tone, violence, and characters match with a modernized version of Homer's The Iliad. The Greek Achaeans besiege the walled city of Troy in northwestern Turkey. The great Greek warrior Achilles sulks in his tent because he feels unappreciated. Then his friend Patroclus is slain, and Achilles embarks on a roaring rampage of revenge. In this retelling, Max is Achilles in that he's detached from life, only persuaded to fight for the city when his dog's killed. Wez is also Achilles as his lover's killed by the Feral Kid. Lord Humongous corresponds with King Agamemnon, and Papagallo with Hector. In Virgil's sequel, the Aeneid, the Greeks construct a giant wooden horse as tribute, and seemingly depart. The Trojans take the horse into the city and celebrate. That night, Greek warriors emerge from inside the horse and open the gates for the Greek army. In this retelling, Max's truck filled with sand is the Trojan Horse drawing the attackers away. Survivors of Troy escape and after a long journey found a new city, Rome.

Still my favourite film since i was a kid - Iconic

Grew up watching this about once a month, for at least a few years, as a kid on a pirated VCR copy. Loved it. Great to see accents I recognised in a movie. Kennedy/Miller made a lot of great TV movies through the 1970s and 80s. The movie series is more hilarious if you’re a local and recognise who the cast have been in other productions. I think they recruited ‘the Humungous’ from going to a local Sydney gym and asking around for the biggest bloke there.

One of the greatest Action films ever made. This is my "Stranded on a desert Island" Film. Plus, in addition to the backstories, many of the Humungas Clan are former Cops

Mad Max is amazing. I watched these as a kid, even though I definitely shouldn't have. There are currently 4 movies. And one video game, if you're interested. It's open world with a lot of car driving/building, hand to hand combat, and desolate landscapes.

When I worked in food retail I used to serve Bruce Spence (helicopter pilot) all the time, super nice guy, appreciated that a young guy knew who he was.

Saw this awesome movie so many times when young. It was a huge deal at the time it came out.

This is from a time when there were limitations to what special effects could and could not do. This is from a time where story and writing was important. Audiences could overlook bad effects if you had a good story to tell. Mad Max is kind of a redemption story.

How crazy DANGEROUS the car chases were.

Funny enough, this is the PG-13 DVD version, not Blu Ray R version.

Mad Max and Road Warrior by George Miller; Heat by Michael Mann; The Evil Dead and ED2 by Sam Raimi are foundational examples of why it is sometimes important to re visit old ideas to execute them with new knowledge, skills, and access to resources. All three of those were ideas redone because the initial execution didn't match up to the premise but the success allowed these directors to being out the true potential of there ideas.

I believe the can of food that was being eaten by Max, then the dog and finally the Gyro Captain getting the dregs, was DINKY DO dogfood.

This has been one of my favorite movies as far back as I can remember. I had a VHS tape recorded off of HBO of this movie as a kid and watched it all the time. I've always called it the ultimate guy movie and I still stand by those words. I loved Fury Road but I still think The Road Warrior is the better, more complete movie.

The original orchestrated score for this film is just pure awesomeness! This film has one of the coolest intros of all time, and the final chase is so iconic.

This film had such a huge influence on me and my friends. We watched it in theatres in 1981 (when I was 10) -- we snuck into the Theatre to watch over and over. We dressed up like Wez and Max, and made our own Mad Max apocalypse cars my cannibalizing car model kits to make our own. I highly recommend Beyond Thunderdome and Fury Road too. Great films, but this is the one that defines the genre for me, at least.

The Road Warrior comes out and history is made.

Love love love Bruce Spence. He shows up in so many of my favorite movies

Thanks to drive-in movies, we saw this movie by the car load. You'd see it with your friends, then again on a date, and again with your friends before the end of the summer.

Its been interesting to see how the audience for this movie has evolved over time. I saw it in the mid 80s as a kid and it seemed like everybody knew about it and had a strong opinion, but over time it's not exactly been forgotten but definitely settled into cult status. Fans of this film are super vocal, almost evangelical. It's like the movie version of Mike Patton. Rightly so, it deserves to stay in the public consciousness. Nobody does it like George Miller.

Its about how the world has changed and how Max's character has evolved and how he has had to in order to survive.

The music was composed by Brian May who is the guitar player in the rock group Queen. The food in the can was dog food...yum yum 😋 😋

YES!! This film is incredible! The first one left a bit to be desired for me, and this film improved on every aspect of the first for me. It’s such a great, special film

I grew up with my friends watching the original Mad Max series along with some other 'interesting' Australian films and stuff like Evil Dead. As others have said, this is what I think of when I think of Mad Max

Mad Max is in the Guiness book of world records, for the largest car chase and crashes in any practically shot movie.

That fade out and 'He lives only in my memories....' DEFINES EPIC. This is the movie that made Mel Gibson a star. This actually got a US release where the first one didn't. We didn't know it was actually a sequel until cable tv came out in the 80's.

The tanker chase scene is one of the most epic action sequences in cinema IMO, yet it's only a part of this movie. Fury Road is basically that scene turned into an entire movie. And I'm 100% fine with it.

Wow awesome how you mentioned Berserk (Best Manga and Anime). Also, some trivia when Lord Humongous is giving his Vengeance monologue he is reciting "Der Erlkonig" and if you look at his hand gun case there is German paraphernalia in it. So, he has some ties with Germany.

Love the relationship between Max and the Gyrocaptain.

Mad Max: Thunder Dome is a prime example when Hollywood takes over a franchise.

Hands down the Best Mad Max Ever!! one of my absolute favorites as a young man growing up in the 80's! in my opinion Mel's best performance next to Lethal Weapon. Glad you enjoyed the movie.

Just watched it on tellie the other night. Its just so Australian. Mad Max is legendary here in Australia 🇦🇺 ❤❤❤

the artists which did the design and the cars are "Mutoid Waste Company": they still do a festival with their art every year or so called "Mutonia" in Santarcangelo, Italy . check out in youtube

such a legendary, raw and amazing movie! There's nothing like it!

The gun Humungus uses is a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .. 44 Magnum.

The gyrocopter character is the same actor who plays the Trainman out of the Matrix series if not mentioned before.

Mel is American born but Australian raised. You don’t need to drive to love the cars, as kids we would get to see the cars at the local Show (that is like a state fair.)

The crossbow guy with a mohawk is Bennet in Commando.

The leather armour and the character of Dogmeat in the Fallout series is inspired by this very movie's protagonist and his dog.