Mad Max (franchise) Mad Max (franchise) Mad Max is an Australian dystopian action media franchise created by George Miller and Byron Kennedy. It began in 1979 with "Mad Max", and was followed by three films: "Mad Max 2" (1981), "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" (1985) and "" (2015). Mel Gibson starred in the first three films and Tom Hardy took over as Max in the fourth film. The series follows the adventures of Max Rockatansky, a police officer in a future Australia which is experiencing societal collapse due to war and critical resource shortages. When his wife and child are murdered by a vicious
Mad Max 2 concept of the hero", stating that this attempt "makes the film joyless", "sappy", and "sentimental". The film's depiction of a post-apocalyptic future was widely copied by other filmmakers and in science fiction novels, to the point that its gritty "junkyard society of the future look...is almost taken for granted in the modern science-fiction action film." "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" says that "Mad Max 2", "with all its comic-strip energy and vividness...is exploitation cinema at its most inventive." Richard Scheib called "Mad Max 2" "one of the few occasions where a sequel makes a dramatic improvement in quality over its