4 out of 5

Director: George Miller, George Ogilvie

While not as grim as the first flick, nor as stoically smart and exciting as two, Beyond Thunderdome’s swerving away from certain genre tropes (while at the same time gleefully embracing some that the series in part introduced) and dedication to keeping Max the rogue make it a successful followup as well as a better-than-average action flick on its own terms.  Miller’s imagination blossomed over the course of the films, and his skill in bringing it to screen – with great sets, great costumes and prop design – and zany yet thrilling and competent camerawork (that I’m surprised, in retrospect, isn’t often compared to Sam Raimi’s early output) – all assist to make this a rare trilogy that offers something unique each time, not just one-up attempts.  ‘Thunderdome’ slips into tough-guy gags here and there – where the first film slipped into camp, I suppose – but it’s in service of good comic timing and it’s nice to think that this would’ve still pre-dated a lot of instances of the same we’ve come to see.  We begin with a great aerial pan of a desert, and an air-to-caravan heist that leaves the robbed stranded.  He removes his hood… and it’s Max, with Braveheart hair.  Max tracks his wares to ‘Bartertown,’ a trading outpost run by Tina Turner, and the flick misleads us into thinking we’re going to be watching an hour and forty minutes of Max doing deeds for Bartertown in order to earn back his things, but the script takes a wayward turn – after the still bogglingly awesome Thunderdome sequence – and drops Max back desert-ward amongst a pack of Lost Boys-esque chitlins.  In a way this might break the film, as it seems to cut some tension, but it ends up being a smarter way to play things so that we’re not just retreading film 2.  Gibson strikes a nice balance between eff-off anti-hero and a deeper-rooted lack of care thanks to the character’s history; its nuance earned and requires actual acting to make it felt.  Turner handles her dialogue oddly, but the costume makes you not care, and then all of those Mad Max extras – the final chase sequence, eye-popping practically done stunts still in tow, Miller’s in-your-face camera, the deliciously hodge-podge costumes, the sense of history (dig the kid’s history lesson… awesome compressed storytelling) – all of this is, on one hand, window dressing for what’s essentially an action movie, but on the other hand, the excitement of returning to the world hints that it’s something a tad deeper than popcorn titillation.  And years later the movie still stands.

Update 02.05.2017: Blu-ray notes – a balls blu-ray.  The transfer is good but it doesn’t feel like it especially enriches anything, which is odd given some of the expansive setups in this flick.  There’s also zero commentary, and zero extras.  Pfft.