Dusty crash-ups, smeared make-up, hockey masks and butt cheeks in the desolate, post-apocalyptic wasteland of distant Australia. Is there anything more quintessentially _Mad Max_ than that lineup? Following hot on the heels of 1979's low-budget original, _The Road Warrior_ (as it was dubbed in America) ups the ante in every sense. Bigger and louder. More visually ambitious. Conceptually tighter, with taller fireballs, scrappier-looking vehicles and a more appropriate (read: super-speedy) pace. It's a solid '80s action movie, released when the world was still trying to figure out what, exactly, that meant.

Max himself might say a dozen words from start to finish - the epitome of the strong, silent type - but his sawed-off shotgun speaks volumes and his grizzled exterior is betrayed by the guilty grin he has for two unlikely cohorts: a fiercely loyal stray dog and a feral, fur-clad young boy. The kid seems redundant, really, given how well Max's pairing with the dog works, but neither relationship feels force-fed or strained and they each have a slightly different role to play in the simple, no-frills story.

Not that anyone is out for high art here. We're all after the crazy bondage outfits, the massive action sets and the twisted metal aftermath. Plenty of that to go around, especially in the quarter-hour of total, unhinged vehicular madness that concludes the whole ordeal. It's stupid and fun, visceral thrills with only the loosest of story beats; the bare minimum necessary to move us from one smoldering pileup to the next. I think my knowledge of / appreciation for _Fury Road_ hurts it, though.

The first film did us the favour of establishing the character, so this time we can cut quickly to the chase. "Max" (Mel Gibson) is now a fully fledged drifter. He still has a semblance of decency, comparatively speaking, as he travels the Australian wastelands trying to stay alive and keep himself fuelled. Along the way he meets up with the slightly wacky "Gyro Captain" (Bruce Spence) but it's when he encounters a besieged oil facility that things start to hot up. He agrees to try and help them fend off the menacing, mask-wearing, "Humungus" (Kjell Nilsson) and his menacing sidekick "Wez" (Vernon Wells) who has a distinctly Achilles/Patroclus style relationship with his cute, blonde, friend. These bandits are ruthless, violent, and determined to seize this most precious of assets so "Max" proposes to his allies a straight swap - in return for enough gas, he will deliver them a large truck for use to travel to the coast and safety. What follows are a series of quickly paced, perilous escapades that culminate in a cracking chase with what looked very much like the front of a snowplough (in the desert?) playing a crucial role as they try to force their way out. Emil Minty is pretty effective as the aptly named, boomerang-bearing, "Feral Kid" and once we see why Spence has his moniker, the whole thing quite literally takes off. This is so much better than the original. The story is much more substantial, it has plenty of gore yes, but there is also some dark humour and Gibson has loads of charisma as his character develops. Director George Miller offers quite a potent lesson to other film makers too - ninety minutes is quite long enough to pack in plenty and keep the attention of the audience.

***Fighting for fuel in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the Outback***

In the years after a global holocaust, an ex-lawman (Mel Gibson) in remote Australia befriends people at a refinery compound and helps them escape a band of ruthless punk bikers who want their resources. Bruce Spence plays the Gyro Captain while Vernon Wells is on hand as a subordinate leader of the bikers.

"The Road Warrior,” aka “Mad Max 2” (1981) shows a grim, bleak, brutal future, but it's too comic booky and sometimes goofy to truly disturb because it screams exaggeration. A truly disturbing movie debuted fifteen years earlier, “The Wild Angels” (1966), which is shocking because it’s realistic rather than cartoonish. But “The Wild Angels” was an outlaw biker drama whereas “Mad Max 2” is an action-packed adventure. There’s a lot of motorhead thrills if that trips your trigger.

The movie’s an Australian production and avant-garde bordering on surrealism. The protagonist is aloof and laconic while the antagonists are bizarre, even psycho, which makes sense in that people would become a little mad in a desperate post-apocalyptic environment. It’s a strangely detached film about cartoonish people surviving in the wastelands of Australia, but the characters and images are often iconic; and there IS some human interest, like the Gyro Captain’s developing relationship with the cute blonde, the so-called Captain’s Girl (Arkie Whitley). Meanwhile Virginia Hey is striking as the Warrior Woman.

The film runs 1 hour, 34 minutes and was shot in the Outback of New South Wales, Australia.

GRADE: B

Really great sequel that surpasses the original. While short on character moments, the action sequences were fantastic culminating with an adrenaline-filled finale. All in all highly entertaining with just enough weidness to make it stand out all the more... **4.0/5**

The last of the V8 Interceptors and the battle for gasoline!

It's post nuclear war Australia and the precious commodity is gasoline, all the varying degrees of survivors pursue it in anyway they can.

Director George Miller is here armed with considerably more cash than was available for the first cult hit offering in the series, and boy does it show as we get more destruction, even more outlandish stunts, and a fully realised apocalyptic vision of the future. It's incredible to note that there is no CGI here, this is pure raw stunt work, the film plays out as a standard good versus evil tale, but it's the realisation of the crash bang wallop sequences that lift it to being one of the most important sci-fi action movies of modern times.

The baddies are a seething mass of leather, masks, and mohawks, they scowl as they rape pillage and plunder anything in their path, they will stop at nothing to get the craved gasoline that is so important in this world. The good guys are joined by the road warrior himself, Mad Max Rockatansky, a former police officer who turned to being the angry lone warrior of the road after his wife and child were murdered. Can these honest folk survive the onslaught of the crazed plunderers?

Well it's high octane entertainment finding out, and the pace is relentless. The direction is first rate, the scenes are put together brilliantly, and the sound is incredible for those with home cinema. Whilst the film may be guilty of having little to no dialogue for the most part, it really isn't needed as it's all in the action, so strap yourself in and enjoy the ride.

Brilliant film that is still a benchmark for the genre. 9/10