Apathetic Max

Because of my sheltered childhood and relative poverty during high school, I missed many of the “must-see” films of my generation. Since college I’ve been working overtime to catch up, filling the pop-culture void with all the movies I remember being lauded by my schoolyard chums. I just finished the latest venture in this process, Mad Max, one of Mel Gibson’s first films. It wasn’t as disappointing as, say, Boondock Saints, but I’m not exactly brimming over with excitement either.

The netflix jacket was promising: “the postapocalyptic future”; “bloodstained battlegrounds”; “marauding bikers”; etc. Unfortunately, it fails to mention that over half the film is either in-cabin shots of a car / motorcycle or else wide-angle views of the same driving through the countryside. Factor in some thick Australian accents often obscured by the orchestral score and some confusing plot turns and you’ve got a recipe for me making the “get on with it” hand motion. And “postapocalyptic”? It must have been a fairly gentle apocalypse to leave them with so many working muscle cars, double-wide trailers, fully functional electrical and water systems, and a police force. It wasn’t even as bad as Al Gore says global warming will be. I guess it’s going to be a lot warmer? I saw a trailer that mentioned warmth.