Dusty crash-ups, smeared make-up, hockey masks and butt cheeks in the desolate, post-apocalyptic wasteland of distant Australia. Is there anything more quintessentially _Mad Max_ than that lineup? Following hot on the heels of 1979's low-budget original, _The Road Warrior_ (as it was dubbed in America) ups the ante in every sense. Bigger and louder. More visually ambitious. Conceptually tighter, with taller fireballs, scrappier-looking vehicles and a more appropriate (read: super-speedy) pace. It's a solid '80s action movie, released when the world was still trying to figure out what, exactly, that meant.

Max himself might say a dozen words from start to finish - the epitome of the strong, silent type - but his sawed-off shotgun speaks volumes and his grizzled exterior is betrayed by the guilty grin he has for two unlikely cohorts: a fiercely loyal stray dog and a feral, fur-clad young boy. The kid seems redundant, really, given how well Max's pairing with the dog works, but neither relationship feels force-fed or strained and they each have a slightly different role to play in the simple, no-frills story.

Not that anyone is out for high art here. We're all after the crazy bondage outfits, the massive action sets and the twisted metal aftermath. Plenty of that to go around, especially in the quarter-hour of total, unhinged vehicular madness that concludes the whole ordeal. It's stupid and fun, visceral thrills with only the loosest of story beats; the bare minimum necessary to move us from one smoldering pileup to the next. I think my knowledge of / appreciation for _Fury Road_ hurts it, though.