2015 - MAX MAX: FURY ROAD, violent rehash of the previous Max Max films.

After a long pause Mad Max is back in a film that has a lot of kinetic energy and lots of cars and people getting smashed and flattened.  The director George Miller uses his old visual references and tricks from his previous films and if the viewer has seen these shots before in Miller's other car chase films, he sure knows how to use them.

Tom Hardy takes over for Mel Gibson whose presence is frankly kind of missed.  Charlize Theron wa very stunning woman is actually the star of the film and it's not a glamour babe part for her.  Miller has even perversely used computer trickery to remove one of her arms and put a prostethic gripper in it's place.  Next to Theron, Hardy is more of a reactor than driver in this film as she basically beats the crap out of him and any other man that gets in her way.

Fury Road has a lot of scenes and situations from the other films.  The chief villain, Immortan Joe is definitely a call back to The Humungous from The Road Warrior.  Immortan Joe's fortress, The Citadel is clearly Bartertown from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.  The car chases in this film are extremely well done, but they do remind me an awful lot of the final chase in The Road Warrior.  In fact the weirdo's in this film could be related to the other weirdo's that populated the first three films.

Probably the most interesting thing about this film is the strong feminist slant the runs throughout the film.  This is one of the few ''balls to the wall" action films where the women call all the shots fighting a testosterone dripping bunch of violent crazies.

120 minutes

1985 - MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME, the third in the Mel Gibson series.

After hitting a high point with The Road Warrior,  there was hope that the next Mad Max film would continue the trend setting action scenes and settings of the first two films.  

This time Max ends up in "Bartertown" ruled by Tina Tuner (showing a lot of cleavage) as Aunty Entity.  Max ends up fighting in an arena known as Thunderdome for Aunty Entity in order for her to consolidate her power.  Max runs a foul of Entity and is exiled into the Australian desert.  So far in the film all is well, with lots of weird characters and a great fight in the Thunderdome.  Then things start to go downhill pretty quickly.

Max ends up being rescued by a group of kids living in at an oasis.  The kids seem like they stumbled out of Lord of the Flies and somehow wandered onto the set of this film.  The film also starts to turn into a comedy of all things with lots of silly slapstick gags.

As was the custom in the previous films, this film has another spectacular chase sequence and I suppose it's unfair to compare it to The Road Warrior car chase but this chase is somewhat of a disappointment.  Overall the film is somewhat of a letdown from the first two films.

107 minutes, written by Terry Hayes and George Miller.

1983 - TWILIGHT ZONE THE MOVIE, is pretty bad considering the talent

Four big names directors pay tribute to Rod Serling's anthology series and for the most part the segments can't touch any old black and white episode of the series.

John Landis directs, Time Out, the only original episode in the series.  This was the notorious episode that killed the actor Vic Morrow and 2 children.  It's a hit you over the head story about racism that is about as subtle as a steamroller.  Pretty bad.

Steven Spielberg directs Kick the Can and he directs poorly.  This slop about elderly people at a nursing home discovering their youth brought out the worst in the director, the sloppy overblown music, the too glowing photography, the sentimental garbage about old age and childhood, it’s just awful.  This is a director barely in control of his story, possibly the worst thing he has ever been associated with.

Joe Dante directs It's a Good Life and sort of redeems the film.  Dante is able to indulge his interest in cartoons and does make the segment his own.  The problem is that the original episode was a brilliant horror story and Dante chooses cartoonish silliness over horror.

The director of The Road Warrior George Miller, directs Nightmare at 20,000 Feet like it's a Mad Max movie but he has the same problem as Dante, he can't really capture the  horror of the original black and white episode, still probably the best of the short films.  John Lithgow's over the top hysterical performance is pretty fun but he can't top the original actor William Shatner.

 Considering how influential The Twilight Zone still is, this is a pretty poor tribute.

101 minutes, written by John Landis, George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson and Melissa Mathison.