Saw Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. It was okay. The film is cut up into three distinct chapters, each separated by an interminable trek through the desert. The film starts with Max arriving at Bartertown, a little village populated by greased-up BDSM-enthusiasts, ruled over by a black Lady Gaga. She tries to hatch a scheme to tighten her control over the town (which, don't worry, does indeed involve thunderdomes.) Max runs afoul of this scheme and she casts him into the desert. There he meets up with a gang of kids who range from toddler to 20-something in age and who are also clad in leathers, but non-threatening, light-brown ones (none of that shiney, black, studded crap here in Eden.) In the final chapter these two populations collide and there's the inevitable car-chase.
The film is best viewed as a sort of fantasy. There's many clever touches which almost always revolve around world-building. For example, the kids have formed some kind of cargo cult around a downed jet-plane nearby. Neat. Unfortunately the characters are rather thin. Max has been becoming more and more stoic and sullen as the series wears on. I image if a Mad Max 4 were ever made he would at last be just a mannekin, always gazing at infinity with a furrowed brow, never reacting to anything. The townsfolk are all and grimily anonymous and the kids are so interchangeable that in some scenes they literally chant their lines in unison.
So okay, the characters aren't anything special, but the worlds are great. I got a very distinct sense of place and atmosphere from both locations. They were both messy, but in very distinct ways: Bartertown industrial and metallic, Eden baroquely over-decorated with feathers and sticks. Kudos to the art department.
Also the story, though plainly episodic, is pretty good. I didn't think things were too predictable but neither did they seem arbitrary. It is, ultimately, just a bunch of stuff that happens, but it is entertaining stuff and what more can we ask for?
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