Mad Max II - The Executor

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Mad Max II - The Executor
Original title Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
Country of production Australia
original language English
Publishing year 1981
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director George Miller
script George Miller,
Brian Hannat,
Terry Hayes
production Byron Kennedy
music Brian May
camera Dean Semler
cut David Stiven ,
Tim Wellburn,
Michael Chirgwin
occupation
chronology

←  Predecessor
Mad Max

Successor  →
Mad Max - Beyond the Thunderdome

Mad Max II - The Executor (Original Title: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior ) is an Australian action film from 1981. The film was directed by George Miller and continues the story of the police officer Max Rockatansky from Mad Max . The film was released in German cinemas on August 27, 1982 and on video in 1983.

The action begins three years after the events of Mad Max. The civilization is now collapsed, the search for energy in the form of fuel has become a purpose in life. A liter of gasoline is more valuable than a human life. Max Rockatansky drives his modified Ford XB Falcon GT Hardtop V8 Interceptor Pursuit Special as an angel of revenge through junk deserts and ghost towns , always in search of fuel.

action

Ex-policeman Max drives aimlessly through a post-apocalyptic wasteland in his Ford Interceptor and has to defend himself against the attack of a marauding gang. In doing so, he discovers a broken down tractor. A little music game is the only useful thing he can find in her. The next morning, Max is lured into a trap by a gyroplane pilot after approaching his apparently abandoned aircraft. With the help of his dog, however, Max manages to overpower the pilot. In agony, he tells him about a refinery that has been converted into a fortress, in which there should be gasoline in abundance. Max, threatened by an acute fuel shortage, captures the pilot and sets off with him to the said refinery.

Once there, both of them witness an ongoing state of siege: dozens of outlaws patrol in front of the fortress on their motorcycles and in their cars in order to prevent a possible escape of the residents and to gain access to the refinery themselves and thus to the possession of the oil and gasoline. When scouting troops of the besieged are intercepted the next day, Max seizes his chance, frees an injured man and brings him back to the refinery. This is how he gets into the fortress. However, the refinery residents are very suspicious of him and after the injured man dies, Max's agreement with them, which guaranteed him gasoline in large quantities, is also obsolete. Max's car is confiscated and he himself a prisoner.

Meanwhile, all the marauders gather in front of the fortress. Their leader Humungus gives the residents an ultimatum to peacefully leave all fuel and the oil production system to his gang. In return, he will spare their lives. Immediately a dispute broke out between the residents as to whether they should trust him and accept his offer, when suddenly Max interfered in the discussion and offered the residents to get a tractor with which the refinery residents would be able to open their huge fuel tank to take her escape from Humungus' gang. In return, he demands his car back and as much gasoline as he can carry with him. Pappagallo, the spokesman within the community, finally agrees and Max makes his way to the abandoned truck on foot at night. With the support of the gyroplane pilot who had previously been left behind, he finally reached the tractor and was able to drive it into the refinery, but not without being attacked by Humungus' gang on the way there. Against Pappagallo's objections, Max refueled his car as agreed and left the fortress at dawn. He is caught by Wez and some other gang members, his car is destroyed and he is seriously injured.

The pilot discovers him in the desert and brings him back to the fortress with his aircraft. Preparations for the planned outbreak are already underway there. Max, who has only slightly recovered, demands to be the driver of the semi-trailer truck with the fuel, which has meanwhile been converted into a moving fortress. Papagallo agrees to this. After leaving the refinery, Max, as the driver of the tank truck, sees himself again exposed to the attacks of the outlaws. He succeeds in defending the valuable tank. In a final head-on collision with Humungus' car, he and Wez are killed. Max comes off the road with the tractor-trailer, with the entire tanker truck tipping on its side.

Max survived the accident, but was sobered to find that there was only sand in the tank. The tanker with only a few guards was supposed to distract the marauders, while the refinery inhabitants destroy them with explosives and drive with gasoline barrels in a motorcade to an allegedly peaceful country north. In the end Max is left alone in the desert.

Reviews

“After the surprise hit of 'Mad Max' (1979), George Miller was able to raise four million dollars for the sequel. He created the most expensive work in Australian cinema to date and one of the largest car scrapyards in film history. Without words: shot in CinemaScope format, the low-dialogue film captivates less with its daring stunts and its unbridled tendency to brutal violence than with its psychedelic atmosphere. The exterior shots in the Australian outback, bathed in glaring light, provide an oppressive vision of the end times. Conclusion: fast-paced and crazy end-of-time spectacle "

- Cinema

“Apocalyptic fresco staged with excessive brutality, orgies of destruction and cynically choreographed butchery. In view of its tendency to glorify violence, the technical perfection of the film seems all the more annoying. "

- Lexicon of international film

Awards

  • LA Film Critics Association 1982 - Best Foreign Film
  • Saturn Award 1982 - Best International Film

useful information

  • Although conceived as a sequel to Mad Max , Mad Max II is largely independent and hardly requires any prior knowledge of the first part, similar to the dollar films by Sergio Leone . Parallels to the western can also be drawn in other ways: even though it is set in a dystopian near future, it is also a variation of fairly common cowboy and Indian stories, the portrayal of violence, of course, adapted to an adult audience. At times, Miller's post-apocalyptic future looks even more ancient than the wild west: cars and motorcycles equipped with weapons are used as a means of transportation, but firearms or even flamethrowers are rarely used in the film due to a lack of ammunition; more archaic weapons such as arrows and arrows are used Bow, crossbow, harpoons or boomerangs are preferred.
  • Despite the independence of the plot, there are references to Part 1 and thus allow a chronological classification according to the events in the previous part. For example, the right arm of Max's leather jacket is cut off and he has a splint to support his knee, both of which are consequences of his injuries in the first part (broken arm and gunshot in the knee).
  • Miller's Mad Max scenario found many imitators, mostly low-cost Italian productions, that used the same level of violence but minus the spectacular car chases.
  • On the wave of success of the first two parts, a third part was shot with Mad Max - Beyond the Thunder Dome in 1985 . In the near future, a single film about motorcycle gangs turned into an unwanted trilogy with only loosely related plot.
  • For the final chase at the end of the film alone, 40 cars and a tanker were destroyed during the shooting.
  • In the US, the film was called The Road Warrior , because part one was largely unknown there. The hitherto unknown Mel Gibson laid the foundation for his international career with him.
  • The dog is a so-called blue heeler . The dog's name is "dog". The name of the dog food brand "Dinki-Di" alludes to the same Australian slang word that translates as "original, real, the only real thing ".
  • The words "Seven Sisters Petroleum" are painted on one side of the tanker, an allusion to the seven oil companies that practically divided the world oil market in the 1960s and 1970s and were called The Seven Sisters .
  • The cost of production was $ 4 million. Mel Gibson received a salary of $ 120,000. Overall, the film grossed over $ 100 million. In Germany, Mad Max II landed in 8th place with 1.8 million viewers in 1982.
  • In the Simpsons episode, Bart versus Australia , the family is being persecuted by a mob who makes stereotypical and pop-cultural allusions to the country: In addition to Aborigines, a horde of bikers from Mad Max II also takes part in the persecution.
  • The gyroplane pilot is played by the actor Bruce Spence, who also controls the airplane in Mad Max III at the end of the film.
  • The German version of the story at the end of the film incorrectly describes the gyro-pilot ("Gyro Captain") as the helicopter captain. In the film, however, he only flies a gyroplane . For this reason, the pilot also drives the rotor by hand for a faster start before the showdown and after the showdown he can drive the device on the road even with a defective rotor but working propeller.
  • The entire Mad Max film series had an influence on later post-apocalyptic scenarios, in particular on the computer game series Fallout : Here, too, there was a nuclear war that turned the country into a barren wasteland; the look of cities built from junk or old vehicles is strongly reminiscent of the films, and the bandits called "raiders" with their sometimes imaginative armor made from scrap pieces are also heavily inspired by the street gangs from Mad Max.

vehicles

Almost all vehicles used in Mad Max II are conversions of production vehicles in the Australian market. In order to alienate the vehicles, parts of the front of the vehicle were mostly changed, the body completely removed or the roof simply cut off. The Commer school bus and the Mack R600 Cool Power tractor have remained almost unchanged.

The Pursuit Special from Mad Max I is a 1974 Ford Falcon XB Sedan with a 351ci Cleveland V8 engine and various modifications. In Mad Max II , it's a 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe with a 351 V8 engine. It is a limited GT351 version of the Ford XB Falcon hardtop. The name is then different depending on the language. So z. B. "V8 Follower" or "V8 Pursuit Special", or "Pursuit Special". Serious changes to the vehicle are the Weiand compressor and the large tanks including safety devices with explosives.

The original Falcon was for sale after Mad Max I ; after the sequel was done, the car was taken off the market to be used again in Mad Max II . A total of only 949 pieces of this vehicle were produced. The Falcon converted for the film is now in the Cars of the Stars Motor Museum in England. Even today there are precise instructions for converting a Ford Falcon to match the car in the film. The car has been available as a standing model from the Chinese toy company AutoArt since 2008.

Locations

Mad Max II was made in New South Wales ( Australia ) between Broken Hill and Silverton . If you want to visit the individual locations, there are enough road maps on site to show them.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for Mad Max II - The Executor . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2013 (PDF; test number: 53 197 V).
  2. ↑ http://www.cinema.de/kino/filmarchiv/film/mad-max-ii-der-vollstrecker,1341256,ApplicationMovie.html
  3. ↑ Mad Max II - The Executor. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used