5. ‘Mad Max’ (1979)
![MAD MAX, Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, 1979, (c) American International/courtesy Everett Collection](https://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/MSDMAMA_EC029.jpg?w=300)
Yes, it’s the first. Yes, it’s iconic. Yes, it’s heartbreaking. But if we’re really being honest with ourselves, the first adventure of Max Rockatansky is easily his weakest, very much a warmup for both Miller and Gibson before they achieved full action-movie greatness with ‘The Road Warrior.’ Set just before the full societal collapse of the following films, it’s easily the slowest and least full-throttle film of them all, and follows Max not as a wanderer but as a police officer desperately trying to keep order against the rise of lawless motorbike gangs. This status quo is frankly less interesting than the more anarchic world Miller would cultivate in the following films, and for much of the runtime, Max is a bit of a stick in the mud as a protagonist. That changes greatly when tragedy strikes, and the final 20 minutes of the film are so riveting and powerful that they single-handedly make the movie great. But on a whole, this cheaper, grungier film just has less to offer than the sequels it spawned, like the first movie of a superhero franchise that has to tell the origin story so we can move on to the good stuff.