Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 318: Thu Nov 21

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (Miller, 1981): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.20pm

BFI Southbank introduction:
The London Action Festival team bring their roadshow ‘World’s Greatest Screening’ series to BFI Southbank with this special event celebrating George Miller’s acclaimed action masterpiece, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Among other surprises, the extra components to the evening will include an exclusive on-screen contribution by George Miller himself; a look at how the 1982 classic was a game-changer for the vibrant franchise; an in-person interview with Iain Smith OBE, BAFTA-winning Producer of Mad Max: Fury Road, where he’ll look at what it takes to produce for George Miller and talk about his involvement in bringing the franchise back; and a live performance of the “Mad Max Medley” by The McBain Quartet led by Patrick Savage.

Chicago Reader review:
George Miller’s 1981 sequel to his 1980 sleeper, Mad Max. Set in a postapocalyptic Australia, where nomadic tribes battle each other for precious gasoline, it’s a highly stylized, roaringly dynamic action film that shuns plot and characterization in favor of a crazy iconographical melange—it’s like the work of a western punk trucker de Sade. The style is more spectacular and comic-bookish than that of the original, which isn’t all to the good: without the crude but functional motivations of the first film, the violence here comes to seem somewhat arbitrary and distasteful. But for pure rhythm and visual panache, Miller has few real competitors; the climactic chase, with its deft variation of tempo and point of view, is a minor masterpiece.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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