77
Metascore
15 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100EmpireIan NathanEmpireIan NathanIt is the Road Warrior (as it was subtitled for the American release) that remains the definitive Max movie, hard as nails, hell for leather, it lands like a punch to the jaw. Don't drive angry? Yeah, right.
- 90TimeRichard CorlissTimeRichard CorlissMiller suggests violence; he does not exploit it. He throws the viewer off-balance by mixing the ricochet rhythms of his chase scenes with tableaux of Walpurgisnacht grandeur.
- 88Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe experience is frightening, sometimes disgusting, and (if the truth be told) exhilarating. This is very skillful filmmaking, and Mad Max 2 is a movie like no other.
- 80The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyIn its stripped-down, cannily cinematic way, it's one of the most imaginative Australian films yet released in this country. It has no pretensions to do anything except entertain in the primitive, occasionally jolting fashion of the first nickelodeon movies, whose audiences flinched as streetcars lumbered silently toward the camera.
- 80NewsweekNewsweekFor the eternal adolescents of the '80s, "Warrior" is even more primal fun than its predecessor. Miller has perfected the popup Spielberg style and laced it with speed. [31 May 1982, p.67]
- 75ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliMad Max 2: The Road Warrior is a straightforward action/adventure film, filled to the brim with over-the-top chases and stunts.
- 70Washington PostRita KempleyWashington PostRita KempleyThe Road Warrior is ferocious and unpredictable. It's energetic. It's peculiar. It's big and it's dirty. But mostly it's cosmically irrelevant. Hey, but, one thing's for sure, we are driven.
- 63Miami HeraldBill CosfordMiami HeraldBill CosfordThe Road Warrior shows what happens when filmmakers learn something on their way to the sequel. Though the action here follows a predictable course (it's high-tech Shane), the milieu is fascinating, the story sophisticated where Mad Max was crude. [25 May 1982, p.D5]
- 63The Globe and Mail (Toronto)The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Just as John Carpenter seems to generate box-office smashes incidentally to his search for intriguing shades of blue, Miller is so enthused with his camera angles that the movie has ended before he's aware there's only 20 lines of dialogue in it and not a single character better defined than Max's mutt. [22 May 1982]