YMMV / Mad Max

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Max's central conflict is being torn between duty to his family and his duty to fight criminals. He worries that if he remains a cop, he'll slowly become no better than a criminal. Most viewers remember Max's roaring rampage as vengeance for his lost family, choosing to kill them all or die trying because he has nothing to lose. However, Max's wife is actually still alive and reportedly "salvageable" the last we see her. Rather than a broken man with nothing left but vengeance, Max can be seen as choosing to turn his back on his family (Jessie) and fully commit to becoming a monster-hunting monster. The sequels wipe this away by making Max's entire family unambiguously dead, giving him truly nothing to lose.
  • The Nightrider and his girlfriend are generally seen as Dirty Cowards, but some fans view them as being remorseful as the adrenaline of the situation wears off, or even think that the Nightrider is having a psychic vision of the impending apocalypse as he rants about everything being gone.
• Aluminium Christmas Trees: The "Anarchie Road" sign is a vandalised version of a real sign with the real name on it - the real name is "Anakie", it actually is that road (the film was largely made on the south-western outskirts of Melbourne) and Anakie is pronounced exactly the same way as Anarchy.
• Anti-Climax Boss: The Toecutter, as all it takes for Max to finish him off is to chase him down until he gets run over by a truck.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: The film was meant to show the dangers of reckless driving.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Roop and Charlie may vanish around the halfway point but have lots for fans for being Those Two Guys and having some decent humor, poor luck in the chases and some backbone as shown when they confront Johnny the Boy at the station.
  • The Nightrider (along with his alternately worried and excited girlfriend), for being a Large Ham Starter Villain.
  • May and her Creepy Good farmhand only appear in a couple of scenes but are quite popular.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Max suffering a nervous breakdown from the tragedy in his life becomes harder to watch in light of Mel Gibson's own real life personal problems.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • "Nightrider" was probably a very scary name before 1982.
  • The Lancer is called Goose, who is similarly doomed.
  • There's an amusing scene early on where Goose is telling some unfortunate diner about a horrifying car accident where a man got his face ripped off. That man wouldn't happen to be named Joe, would he?
  • Similarly, Toecutter, played by the same actor who would later play Immortan Joe, tells Jesse, "If you should lose the face, you've got nothing." Guess Joe didn't listen to his own advice.
  • In the early 2000s vehicles of Australian police agenices got bright, garish liveries not unlike MFP vehicles had. Bonus points for Australian Federal Police, when shortened, is just one letter off.
• Ho Yay: Mudguts and Cundalini are introduced waltzing together in the street, are rarely seen apart, and Mudguts keeps Cundalini protectively close after the latter loses his hand.
• Memetic Mutation: Nightrider's demented ramblings ("I'm a rocker! I'm a roller! I'm an out-of-controller”, actually an AC/DC lyric) consist the most oft-quoted piece of dialogue, particularly "I am a fuel-injected suicide machine!", which has been the name of several punk rock songs and even showed up in one of the most famous promos of Sid Eudy.
• Misaimed Fandom: While it was meant to show the dangers of reckless driving, the hoons and rev-heads who saw it felt that their lifestyles had been validated.
• Narm: Seeing May blazing away at the bikers with her shotgun and always missing during such a tense scene can have this affect.
• Paranoia Fuel: Max goes on vacation to take a break from the criminals who are slowly causing him to lose his sanity. And they follow him.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: A common criticism is that the "good stuff" doesn't really start until the last act.
• Vindicated by History: Despite turning a massive profit on its meager budget, the film was mostly relegated to the late-night B-Movie crowd in the early '80s. After the more popular sequels The Road Warrior and especially Fury Road, it came to be seen as an influential sci-fi classic and a major example of what exceptional talent can accomplish with virtually no money.
• The Woobie:
  • The poor girl in the car that gets attacked by Toecutter's gang. Not only is she beaten and raped, she's chained up as well and is so terrified she can't even talk to the police at first.
  • Hell, even her boyfriend, too. He's implied to have had the same thing happen to him with the added humiliation of the police treating him like a joke when he tries to flee minus his pants.
  • Goose: He gets burned alive and is left in a vegetative state for life.
  • Max by the end of the film is utterly broken by the hospitalization of Jessie and the death of Sprog. As the Feral Kid put it in the next film, "In the roar of an engine, he lost everything."

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