How are the other Mad Max movies? Should I watch?

I think the first one while nothing incredible is interesting and worth a watch but it has some pacing issues and isn't as crazy as you would think it doesn't really feel "post-apocalyptic" but I still like it, Road Warrior is by far the best, I actually never saw Beyond Thunderdome because it always got such bad word of mouth.

As someone who only watched them relatively recently (meaning sometime early last year), the first was easily my favorite. I don't mean that it's the best, because it's not - the best one is Road Warrior if you're thinking critically - but the first one had me more glued to the screen and attached to the stuff happening. It's got some cheese to it and some low-budget problems, but it paces itself really well. Also, unlike most revenge flicks, most of the movie is spent building up what Max has and only the last third or so is about Max losing it and taking revenge. That's spoilered for a pretty good reason, but it's one of the major reasons I like the first one better.

Road Warrior has a lot of good points in its favor and if you watch the first one, then you have to watch the second one. I think they're two halves of the same story, really, and for that reason I don't think that anything else will ever really live up to them. I went into Beyond Thunderdome not expecting it to live up to them, but I didn't like that one too much. The fight with Master Blaster was pretty cool but it feels like a very disjointed and weirdly paced movie. Also, it's really nasty. I know they're living in a nasty world, but pigshit? Come on. And they even made it look like pretty much everyone is covered in it, too.

I'm pretty excited for Fury Road. Gah, too many things are happening this and next week. Axiom Verge PC. Fury Road. The Witcher 3.

It's great to see someone else that actually likes the first one better! Yeah, it's definitely the character drama that drew me into the first movie more, and I don't think the second movie is quite the same without it.

I've only seen the first, and I have no idea how they went from that to this. I get it, it was made on a tiny budget, but the apocalyptic Australia the first movie portrays is nothing compared to the rest of it.

Anyway, I'm totally going to see this. The trailer features excellent music, operatic, I love the color schemes (kind of washed out but bright too) and Hardy looks like a good protagonist for this fucked up world. The mythology inherent to the world is tantalizing, though somewhat incoherent. They've gone back to a sort of tribal culture but are chiseling huge faces into cliffs and driving long bus death machines? Honestly, don't care. I'm not coming for the realism. I'm coming for the murder sandstorms and car flips... and sexy bald ladies. Every single damn bald lady in any movie has been incredibly hot. Natalie Portman, that chick from Splice, etc.

PS The game is shaping up to be great. Batman with cars, but good on its own. No idea if all the characters in the game can be found in the movie, but I sure hope so.

Ya, Mad Max is great. It's one of those movies I never forgot despite not seeing it for a really long time. It was actually hard to find for a while so I only actually bought it within the last few years. A lot of people forgot about it though- thinking Road Warrior is the first for some reason =P

IMO Mad Max is the most disturbing because of the more dramatic character focus to the film. The action tropes of the other two mean even the crazier characters, and what they do, have less dramatic impact (at least for me) because you kind of expect some level of crazy in an action movie anyway. So something smaller in focus (like the first movie) comes off more powerfully if crazy stuff happens (and it does).

The second movie is still great, but it's a different kind of movie entirely. I think watching them back to back can actually be super jarring if you don't know that they're completely different kinds of films.

actually.... I'd kill to see whatever happen to the Feral Kid from Road Warrior then just rebooting Mad Max.

Watched Mad Max one and two last night and, well, I've got to agree with this.

While each had bits and pieces that I really liked, on the whole the films just didn't do it for me.

The gang of wacky bikers was pretty great. Toe Cutter, of course, was awesome. It's just a shame that most everything else about the first film was so dreadfully 70s in a way I just couldn't get into. And Goodness me, it sure did it take it's time to do anything. Was only the last 10 minutes of the film that even began to resemble what I've been told is a Mad Max movie. Still, the direction, when not meandering lazily about, showed a keen eye for action. And who doesn't love practical effects and car stunts?

Again, with the second film, the best thing about it were the baddies. That punk with the red mohawk has the best damn face I've seen on any wasteland warrior. And that muscle man with the mask? forget about it! The good guys on the other hand were "crazy" in the worst sort of way, falling somewhere between distractingly tongue-in-cheek and Ewoks (I'm looking at you, feral child). Once again, the amount of uninteresting nonsense to well directed action was out of whack, but not as badly this time around. Goes without saying that the truck chase was the highlight of the movie.

Also worth mentioning is that the score really irritated me. Having an overly dramatic feeling orchestral soundtrack seemed so out of place. It needed to be more driving, slicker. It needed to be in tune with the muscle cars and the wasteland, not sound like some old fashioned adventure serial.

Goes without saying that I'm just going to skip Thunderdome, unless someone wants to convince me otherwise. :P

I'm still pretty pumped for Mad Max 2015, though a little more cautious now. I wonder if it'll fall into the same problems? Will we have an extended sequence of Max going on holiday and having a lark?

This is a great example for @cornbredx's point about the first movie - it's a character drama that turns very grim at the end. It also happens to be one hell of a slow burn. Sure, it's got impressive stunts for its budget and time, but I don't think that's what people should watch it for. If you go in expecting action on the scale of The Road Warrior or any other action movie with a decent budget, you'll be pretty disappointed.

@believer258:

For what it's worth, I love films like The Road, The Rover and There Will Be Blood to name a recent few. That kind of slow, slow tension builder. Mad Max just didn't deliver on that or the promise of car action which it's legacy suggested. To me, it just felt awkward and weird. A shame, as the concept should be pretty amazing.

Probably just have to admit that budget filmmaking from that era just doesn't sit right. :(

@subwayd: I can see disliking the movie for that reason, it could have some issues with age depending on the person.

I am curious for people who have seen all the Mad Max movies if they have an opinion of what their ranking is for each film in the series. I have never seen the old films, and I am curious about watching the old films before seeing the new one

Mad Max isn't really anything special. It's pretty cheesy and drags a bit, but has some good action and generally enjoyable weirdness. The Road Warrior is pretty awesome. No lame build-up like in the first film. Just dumb, wacky action. I haven't seen Beyond Thunderdome because everyone seems to agree it's the worst of the three. I would recommend watching the first two so you can get an idea of why the stunts/action sequences are well-thought of and the batshit craziness that you should expect, but it's not like the lore is key to enjoying the new one or anything. They're pretty weak films, story-wise. The appeal is the over-the-top shit, and the films excel at that. I'm seeing Fury Road tomorrow and I'm really excited about it.

I don't know if this comparison will mean anything to you, but I would say it is more like the difference between El Mariachi and Desperado.

The first is a shoestring production, made by a fledgling group of filmmakers, and as such it is slightly tentative, and at least partially concerned with demonstrating an ability to construct a "traditional" narrative effectively. The second is a lot more stylistically distinctive and confident in doing what it wants to do. What both pairs of films share as well is that they second films cease to be as concerned with character as much as they are concerned with creating a sort of mythological heroic epic in the vein of Leone's Dollars trilogy or something of that sort.

Another thing that they have in common - which they actually share with the first two Evil Dead films, imo - is that both of them in some strange way feel disconnected from their original films. They are a sequel, but at the same time they act as reboots. They're not afraid of jettisoning elements from the first film that don't fit with the myth of the character or the world that they want to create.

Although, full disclosure, I haven't watched the Mad Max films in going on a decade, so take that as you will.

All 3 are pretty much awesome but 2 is definitely my favourite. We had to re-watch all of the DVD's before the premiere last night. I did like the new one but I really couldn't see it beating The Road Warrior. It had some of the best action sequences and movie lines with Humongous stealing the show every time he grabbed that microphone.

I've only seen the first two, and I don't recommend either. I found the first one quite dull, and Road Warrior rarely held my attention. Maybe I didn't catch them at the right time/age, but...uuuuuuuuuugh. No thanks.

So i've seen all four movies and i only just watched the first three movies last night after i got back from the theater for Fury Road. That said, i think Fury Road is the best of the four, Road Warrior in second, Beyond Thunderdome, despite being kinda goofy in spots, third and the original Mad Max would come in last only because it just felt like it was from a different series, compared to what i grew up to know, "Mad Max" to be.

The movies are not really chronological (except the original is obviously the origin story) so you don't need to watch any of them in order but once you see Fury Road i think you'll appreciate watching them as i did going back to the original and then the rest.

...also Fury Road is fucking amazing; holy shit.

How comparable is Mad Max to Water World?

I remember liking the first two a lot. Mad Max 3 Beyond Thunderdom Was freaking terrible though. I think I'd rather watch Sisterhood of the Traveling pants than that garbage again.

The first one is very slow, but the second one is a masterpiece. One of the best action films of all time

Fury Road is awesome but it is absolutely not necessary to have seen the old movies to understand it.

I never liked Mad Max, mainly because I always found the whole "post apocalypse deserts and spiky shoulder pad tribes" thing to be hugely dull. I really had to power past that stuff to enjoy New Vegas, for instance. I saw only bits and pieces from the first three movies.

However, my interest has been a bit piqued with all of the love for Fury Road as well as the upcoming game. I gotta admit, the relentlessly balls-out nature of it sounds pretty amazing, and the weird saturation effect is gorgeous. I'm not about to go see it in theaters, but home release for sure. I'm not an action movie guy, but I can certainly get down with a particularly good one (Terminator 2 is one of my all-time favorite movies, after all).

Yes, if you're only going to watch one, watch Road Warrior. The first one has great mood and atmosphere, with some really cool sections and scenes in it. However it has pretty bad pacing issues and can get pretty boring at times.

Road Warrior definitely gets a bit too ambitious with sets and costumes for the budget and it shows. It also starts adding in a bit more comic relief. With all that said though, it's easily the best of the three.

I don't remember much about Beyond Thunderdome except that I just didn't care for it as much as the first two.

Waterworld is a movie that took the aesthetic of Mad Max but missed something. When I think about it the story in Waterworld and the new Mad Max are basically the same, only one group actually finds the paradise. Waterworld never gets gnarly enough cus its a PG-13 movie so its just the goofy nonsense but that nonsense doesnt really work without relentless disregard for human life, which Mad Max has in spades.

The Road Warrior has some great aesthetic choices and is a cool movie, but I prefer Mad Max easily. I'm also about the only person on earth who thinks this.

Spending my life hearing about what "Mad Max" was and seeing stills of leather-clad men with knives and guns in crazy cobbled together muscle cars and then actually watching Mad Max was crazy. It's so different looking and feeling from the other films, it almost feels separate. Mad Max rules.

Maybe I'm more far removed from the film than I thought, but I always thought the space marines were supposed to be dispshits. Even if they weren't, it plays that way now. All of Bill Paxton's "Heeey, check this out!"