Junky, freaky, sadistic, masochistic, Mad Max has a perverse intelligence revving inside its pop exterior. It's a crazy collide-o-scope, a gear-stripping vision of human destiny careening toward a cosmic junkyard. [21 July 1980, p.71]

Mad Max has always radiated an otherworldly vibe, a slightly sickly sensation that something at its core is fundamentally wrong.

Simple, but effective.

With his instinct and craft, Miller has provided more autosuggestive violence on a $1 million budget than The Blues Brothers did with half the Chicago police force and $30 million.

It's pretty much assumed throughout art and literature that the collapse of civilization will result in the rise of barbarism. That assumption underlies Mad Max, where the strong prey on the weak, and Max steps in to be the equalizer.