Each installment in the Mad Max series changed the tone of the franchise and, with it, altered the nature of the title character. Some characters are beloved for their consistency. No matter who plays 007, the suave super-spy is always going to be a hyper-competent spy, even if some actors’ versions on James Bond play down his quips and play up his tortured inner life. Similarly, regardless of how many movies he appears in, Batman will always be a brooding vigilante (even if this occasionally comes with a side of campy self-parody courtesy of Adam West). However, not every blockbuster hero is this reliable.
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Throughout the Mad Max franchise, the title character has been a grounded, relatable everyman, an almost mythical being, a high plains drifter, and even a wild supporting star. Each Mad Max movie reinvents the character of Max anew and, although three out of the four movies in the series feature the same actor playing the character, every sequel’s new version of Max adds another side to the mysterious figure. While Tom Hardy’s performance as Max in 2015’s Fury Road was an active attempt to reinvent the character, Mel Gibson’s Mad Max performances are just as varied and unpredictable in the earlier outings of the post-apocalyptic franchise.
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Mad Max Was Originally A Tragic Antihero
In 1979’s original Mad Max, Max is introduced as a young rookie cop trying to maintain law and order in a futuristic city. While the original Mad Max is set in the future, this was mostly to save money on production costs and there are hardly any sci-fi elements to the original movie’s plot. Mad Max’s story is a straightforward tale of revenge that sees Gibson transform from a fresh-faced young officer to a taciturn, ruthless killer seeking vengeance on the biker gang who murdered his wife and child. Surprisingly slow and bleak, the original Mad Max depicts Max as a decent man turned into a bloodthirsty murderer.
This portrayal of Max as a tragic antihero was largely abandoned throughout the rest of the franchise, and it is easy to discern why this is the case. After the franchise’s off-screen apocalypse, Max became even more isolated, tough, and distrustful. Much like Furiosa’s upcoming Mad Max backstory will likely justify her intense, brooding demeanor in Fury Road, 1979’s Mad Max explains why Max is such a brutal and occasionally heartless force of nature in later franchise installments. Max leaves behind a lot of his humanity at the end of the original movie, transforming from a cop trying to keep the peace into the terrifying figure of Mad Max.
The Road Warrior Is A Western Sheriff
In The Road Warrior, the Mad Max franchise took an unexpected tonal swerve. Where Mad Max was a dark, grounded psychological thriller, its first sequel was an over-the-top sci-fi action extravaganza. The villains were campier, the setting was less realistic, and the story was simpler. A much more violent Mad Max movie than its predecessor, The Road Warrior saw Max take on the role of a Western sheriff as he protected a small community that was being exploited by the villainous Lord Humungus. To be specific, Max took on the role of the nameless drifter who arrived in the middle of a conflict and solved it with quick wits.
With only 16 lines in The Road Warrior, this version of Mad Max clearly owes a debt to Clint Eastwood’s iconic The Man With No Name. His character arc also has echoes of The Magnificent Seven, with Max risking his life to save a community thanks to his innate sense of right and wrong, even though this risked his life in the process. The Road Warrior’s cut twist would have connected the sequel to the original Mad Max but, as this scene was deleted, this version of Mad Max is more of a classic Western hero than the original movie’s bloodthirsty vigilante.
Beyond Thunderdome’s Max Is A Living Legend
By the time Beyond Thunderdome comes along, Max had undergone another offscreen transformation, this time becoming (slightly) kinder. Long-haired and more talkative, the second sequel’s version of Max is a less taciturn and more thoughtful figure. He is also a mythical character within the franchise’s universe by now, after surviving until adventures and roaming the wasteland for longer than he can recall. However, the biggest change in this version of Max is exposed when Beyond Thunderdome’s big twist reveals Aunt Entity’s villainy. Upon realizing that Master Blaster is not all that he appeared, Max refuses to kill him, proving that he still has some humanity left in him in this sequel.
Fury Road Made Max Madder
In Fury Road, the years spent wandering the wasteland have taken a toll on Max’s mental health. While the title of the franchise always warned viewers that Max was not entirely well, Hardy’s take on Max is the most explicitly mad version of the character, and Max is more sympathetic thanks to this insight into his struggles. Jittery, uncomfortable, and slow to speak, Hardy’s Mad Max is a bundle of nerves that is plagued by nightmarish hallucinations. Whether Hardy returns for Mad Max’s fifth movie or not, this reinvention of the character has already reshaped Max in the eyes of viewers by showing a more human, unstable side of the antihero.
How The Wasteland Can Reinvent Max Again
It will be tough for The Wasteland to make Max feel fresh again. However, this is not impossible. After Fury Road gave viewers insight into his faltering mind, Max could be more stoic in The Wasteland, as more years of wandering could have led him back to comparative stability. Alternatively, the next movie could depict him as a more villainous character, or at least one who doesn’t have the unfailing moral compass that Max boasts in the rest of the sequels. By the end of the dark original Mad Max, Max is reduced to torturing a villain, revealing a dark side that the next Mad Max movie could explore more.