As most of you know I am a fan for science fiction, and as part of that, I like post-apocalyptic tales. This is a classic, but I had never seen it. I guess that should be surprising because I saw Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome when I was a kid.

Mel Gibson stars as Max Tockatansky, who is some sort of adapted police officer that patrols the streets in a world that seems short on oil and fuel. The world is falling into desolation, and the police don't seem to be able to keep up with the growing numbers turning to road piracy and other similar forms of outlaws that are wreakign havoc. As a result, Max is starting to wonder if he is doing any good.

As a result, he wants to leave the world behind, particularly after one gang of road pirates targets him and his family after they flee into the countryside so he can get away from the horrors he faced at work.

I was sort of surprised by the movie. Having known Road Warrior and the third movie in the trilogy mentioned earlier, I was surprised to see that the post-apocalyptic world is not as different as it would become in later movies. Rather than the large stretches of desert, it is almost like looking at the American Midwest.

The violence in the movie is pretty rough, which isn't all that surprising, but I forgot that it was a foreign film. Our American sensibilities accept a certain amount of violence, but we are really put off by certain types of violence such as that done against children. While none of it is seen on the screen, it is understood to happen clearly in the movie. It is an important turning point, but one that left me really shocked.

In all honesty, I was surprised that the movie was successful enough to warrent two sequels. It is not that it was boring, but it was not really done on a really sophisticated level. In other words, it was really made on the cheap. That makes the strength of the story its basic tale and its criticism of whether or not civilization would crumble under such conditions. As you can guess, the creators aren't predicting a positive turn out.