George Miller
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The film has the "Mad Max" mindset except instead of freakish muscle cars everyone rides altered BMX bikes.
While retro cinema has long become an overexposed trend in itself, "Turbo Kid" is one of the best examples, working as a nostalgic love letter and a cheesy spin on "Mad Max", making its timing pretty darn perfect.
After making a slew of shorts during the past decade, Montreal film collective Roadkill Superstars (RKSS) finally drops their feature debut Turbo Kid, into which they stuff Eighties Mad Max rip-offs and youth-driven B-movies (Solarbabies, BMX Bandits) in a blender to create a satisfying (if blood-drenched) smoothie of awesomeness.
A fun satirical flashback to 1980s “Mad Max” knockoffs and more juvenile post-apocalyptic adventures like “Prayer of the Roller Boys,” “ Turbo Kid ” reps the first feature (after numerous shorts) from Anouk Whissell, Francois Simard and Yoann-Karl Whissel, the Quebec trio known as RKSS (Road Kill Super Stars).
Turbo Kid on the other hand—written and directed by the trio of Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell—is a loving send up of the glut of cheap international post-apocalyptic knock offs that Mad Max helped spawn throughout the 1980s.
It is unsparingly violent, yet the target audience for this Mad Max meets BMX Bandits blood-gusher seems to be under-17 youth.
Peninsula (2020)
Directed by Yeon Sang-ho
influenced by Mad Max (1979), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Visuals Themes
These include an extraordinary car chase as Yeon goes full throttle on the Seoul roads in a way that’s reminiscent of sequences from Mad Max: Fury Road .
Some take place during high-octane car chases that seem inspired by the narrow escapes of The Bourne Identity, the eye-popping drifts of The Fast And The Furious franchise and the over-the-top vehicle battles of Mad Max: Fury Road.
The epic 20-minute climax clearly takes some inspiration from Mad Max: Fury Road .
But in the hands of someone like Yeon, whose influences range from John Carpenter (“Escape from New York”) to George Miller (yes, “Mad Max: Fury Road”), it is the horror gift that just keeps giving.
A few cups of Escape from New York here, a few tablespoons of Mad Max: Fury Road there, blended with Zack Snyder, George Romero, pieces of any post-apocalyptic films from the past 20 years.
But for all its cartoony gore and gaudy imagery, Peninsula does at least fulfill its goal of being Mad Max: Fury Road with zombies.
Mortal Engines (2018)
Directed by Christian Rivers
influenced by Mad Max (1979), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Visuals Music
Another impressive and impressive component comes in the form of soundscape composer Junkie XL of Mad Max: Fury Road notoriety.
It's been a long time since Peter Jackson last made a good movie, and the dry spell continues with Mortal Engines, which answers a burning question: What if Mad Max: Fury Road had sucked?
If Mortal Engines has anything going for it, it’s that strong initial promise, established with a dizzying, breakneck opening set-piece, realising both the strong effects work of Jackson’s own VFX house Weta Digital and a relentless score from Mad Max: Fury Road composer Junkie XL.
With CGI-heavy traction chases, sky-based attack sequences and fiery fight scenes – set to an ostentatious score by Junkie XL – it’s reminiscent of Mad Max: Fury Road.
But most of “Mortal Engines” is a wearying blast of CGI and genre-cribbing (most egregiously, director Christian Rivers hired composer Junkie XL to seemingly lift, wholesale, his soundtrack from “Mad Max: Fury Road”).
There are the obvious Mad Max undertones to that opening city chase scene—the sequence is even scored by the same composer as Mad Max: Fury Road, Junkie XL—but also elements of The Matrix in certain characters’ aesthetics, and a derivative romantic subplot that all young adult–leaning dystopian fare seems to lean toward.
The duo clearly did their homework while preparing for their comeback project; references to other cinematic apocalypses abound (biker gangs that could have ridden right out of Mad Max; a poster for the 1975 cult favorite A Boy and His Dog displayed in the background of one key scene) and the movie opens with a pre-title sequence that evokes the dark, desolate, ash-strewn world described in Cormac McCarthy's The Road more faithfully than the recent film version of that Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
The Bigger Picture: Considering that The Book of Eli combines the postapocalyptic milieu of a Mad Max flick with the brutal violence and gospel message of The Passion of the Christ, it's easy to imagine that it might become Mel Gibson 's favorite movie of the year.
If there is anything of even the least note about this film, it is that it's been quite a good long while since I can recall a post-apocalyptic film to invent so very little and to rip off the Mad Max movies quite so happily.
Yes folks we're in Mad Max, Terminator Salvation and even The Postman country as a grizzled, bible toting and quoting Denzel goes on his ‘lone wolf’ (or Littlest Hobo) mission to save humanity, one town at a time.
Eli, a former K-Mart store hand but clearly believing himself a Christian prophet, manages to escape the town alongside Solara but Carnegie and his stooges (led by Ray Stevenson) are hot on his tail across the desert wastes a la Mad Max.
The film’s marketing is deceptive because you’re given the impression this is first and foremost an action movie set in a dystopian future ala “Mad Max,” but instead, the movie gets bogged down in exposition about the significance of the central plot device.
Bacurau (2019)
Directed by Juliano Dornelles
influenced by Mad Max (1979), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Visuals Themes Plot
Former film critic Mendonça Filho is now three for three making exquisite films about social justice in his home country, this one, a futuristic Western a la Sergio Leone and “Mad Max,” his first genre film.
Entre el cine de Emir Kusturica y el de John Carpenter, con algunos pasajes que remiten a Mad Max (aquí también hay una disputa por el agua) y momentos en la línea del Cinema Novo de Glauber Rocha, Bacurau resulta una película potente en el terreno narrativo y visual (extroardinaria la fotografía de Pedro Sotero), tan provocadora como incómoda en su mirada de la lucha de clases y por el dominio de las tierras, aunque por momentos no demasiado sutil (ver el personaje del alcalde corrupto) y algo afecta al subrayado.
Y tras la excelente Aquarius, que hace tres años muchos veíamos incluida en el palmarés, y el jurado presidido por el australiano George Miller (Mad Max) ignoró por completo, al igual que a Toni Erdmann- su director, el brasileño Kleber Mendonça Filho y su compatriota Juliano Dornelles trajeron Bacurau.
Bacurau has an intriguing and suspenseful first hour before turning into a shallow and tedious blend of Mad Max and The Hunger Games.
With subtle echoes to likes of Mad Max, there’s a greater story here that while not always perfectly executed is still richly realized, making for a harrowing and effective piece.
But Bacurau is a much crazier enterprise altogether, crammed with elitist homicidal maniacs, nudists with blunderbusses, Mad Max types who consider Che Guevara less than manly, bikers in 1980s-gaudy costumes, and Udo Kier.
The Dog Stars (2026)
Directed by Ridley Scott
influenced by Mad Max (1979), Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)
Themes Visuals Plot
…after watching Brolin go full commando on feral invaders straight out of a Max Max casting call, it’s hard to disagree.
Meanwhile, the Reapers — ever-more feral gangs (and huge Mad Max fans from their attire and tattoos) — are rumoured to be roaming the countryside…
…from any number of zombie flicks to George Miller’s gonzo Mad Max action operas…
There is also a terrific, Mad Max-adjacent chase when Hig’s plane takes off while men on horseback try to overtake him.
…his Omega Man western that’s a not-so-mad Mad Max…
There’s the loyal dog of I Am Legend, the manic berserkers of Mad Max (though without their wit or characterisation) and even the bonkers future-nostalgia of Fallout at one point.
There’s even an out-of-nowhere callback to the 1993 Susan Sarandon drama “Lorenzo’s Oil” for no discernible reason.
(Although some of the touchstones — a “Lorenzo’s Oil” nod? — are simply inexplicable.)
The new Pegg-Frost film, like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Spaced, is crammed with gaggy allusions to movies of all kinds, from Capturing the Friedmans to Lorenzo's Oil; but the inexhaustible touchstone is Hollywood sci-fi.
Give "Paul" this much: it holds the unprecedented distinction of being the only mainstream comedy in existence with punchlines referencing the 2003 child molestation documentary "Capturing the Friedmans" and 1992's disease drama "Lorenzo's Oil."
What elevates this material to fanboy porn is the dialogue, which constantly appropriates signature lines from Star Wars, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters...even (huh?) Lorenzo's Oil.
The movie wants to be more than it can be, so it ends up looking a bit strained in some places, although much of it is undeniably, viscerally effective, especially when Miller and cinematographer David Eggby (Pitch Black) get their cameras right in the middle of the automotvie mayhem ripping up the straight-line asphalt highways cutting through the Australian outback.
Resourceful as Fry is, though, she's uncomfortable in her new role—particularly when the planet's Mad Max-like landscape, thought to be uninhabited, suddenly turns treacherous.
If at times it is reminiscent of "Alien", "Mad Max" or of countless hilarious straight-faced science fiction B-movies, "Pitch Black" takes itself as seriously as it needs to and embraces every cliché it comes across like an old friend.
Special mention has to go to Eggsby, who used the same Coober Pedy, Australia, locations for the now-classic "Mad Max" (1979).
With this opening sequence, Pitch Black -- co-written by brothers Jim and Ken Wheat with director David Twohy -- asserts outright its derivative sources, quoting from the Alien, Mad Max, and Terminator series, Blade Runner, Fearless, Con Air, and The Fugitive, even Stagecoach, in the outlaw traveling with a group of "civilized" folks.
It's a tightly constructed genre picture, combining the best paranoid thrills of the "Alien" series with the setting of "Mad Max" and the anti-Utopian future of "Blade Runner."
There are plenty of references to previous MCU movies and non-Marvel movies, i.e. George Miller’s Mad Max franchise. The set piece for the villain’s headquarter seems to be modeled after the apocalyptic saga and Deadpool even makes a direct reference to the female heroine at one point.
Reynolds' quips make it clear that the resemblance to George Miller's Mad Max terrain is entirely intentional.
Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014)
Directed by Kiah Roache-Turner
influenced by Mad Max (1979)
Themes Visuals
Add in dollops of mordant Aussie humour - keeping zombies on ice in the same place as the beers - and the spirit of Mad Max, The Evil Dead and Peter Jackson's Braindead, and you have a tidy little package of tension, terror and tongue-in-cheek fun.
Zombies, dudes, guns, ostentatious weaponry, booze, and a bitchin' war vehicle straight from the pages of the Mad Max catalogue for the bored and lonely is all genre filmmakers this inventive need.
The model they're hawking is a lively crossbreed of Peter Jackson -style gore comedy of manners (a la "Dead Alive") and "Mad Max" post-apocalypse machine punk, in which brooding antihero Barry (Jay Gallagher), forced to sacrifice his turned wife and daughter, must traverse a zombiefied outback to rescue his sister Brooke (Bianca Bradey), who's been kidnapped by sadistic paramilitaries and subjected to a psycho doctor's evil experiments.
Kiah Roache-Turner’s zombie movie set in the Australian outback displays enough gonzo elements to please genre fans, with its resemblance to the Mad Max series clearly not coincidental.
And why does this whole thing remind me of “Mad Max”?
The pair’s intention to produce a hybrid of Mad Max and Dawn of the Dead results in an enthusiastic and enterprising horror that gleefully spurts fake blood from every available orifice.
Supergirl (2015)
Directed by Jen Troy
influenced by Mad Max (1979), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Visuals Themes
…as well as a few borrowed bits of Mad Max-ish dystopia…
There’s a little Mad Max here.
With SUPERGIRL, written by Ana Noguera and directed by Craig Gillespie, it’s not only a down-in-the-mouth slog, but it’s so derivative of STAR WARS, MAD MAX, and yes, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, it makes me wonder if Gunn genuinely has the vision the WB executives thought he had.
…with the villains all looking like escapees from recent Mad Max films…
It’s as if someone meshed together the aesthetics of Mad Max: Fury Road and Guardians of the Galaxy…
It does pay off to a big sequence that owes some influence to Mad Max: Fury Road, which was entertaining to watch.
Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)
Directed by Malcolm D. Lee
influenced by Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Visuals
When it comes to bringing the Looney Tunes back together, Space Jam: A New Legacy does admittedly demonstrate a desire to get playfully fun, briefly taking the characters inside scenes from Mad Max: Fury Road, The Matrix, and a few others with inspired results (Foghorn Leghorn also hilariously recites a Game of Thrones catchphrase).
There are nods to The Wizard of Oz , Casablanca , A Clockwork Orange , King Kong , The Matrix , and Mad Max: Fury Road , among many others.
Everything from Mad Max: Fury Road and Rick and Morty to Austin Powers and Harry Potter get playful — and occasionally really clever, in the case of Fury Road — nods and call-outs in James’ adventure through the WB servers.
Director Malcolm D. Lee ("Girls Trip") does his best to dodge the conceptual pitfalls, finding a few giggles when Wile E. Coyote joins a chase scene from "Mad Max: Fury Road."
The pair race through the ServerVerse together in Marvin the Martian’s flying saucer, visiting DC superheroes like Batman and Wonder Woman, stopping for Matrix slow-motion bullet gags and a Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) sketch with Wile E. Coyote, all while busily collecting the other ‘toons.
Before that, LeBron and Bugs have to get their Tune Squad together, so they enter famous scenes in an array of Warner Bros. movies and TV shows to recruit familiar personalities: Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner hanging with War Boys in “Mad Max: Fury Road” makes sense, Foghorn Leghorn riding a “Game of Thrones” dragon, not so much.
Cut to Mariner ( Kevin Costner ), aboard his trimaran, a sailing vessel that looks made out of spare parts from "Mad Max."
Whether it's the rusting scrap-metal sets or the gas-guzzling bad guys, the movie takes its cues from George Miller's "Mad Max" movies.
With chests fully puffed after their global success with 1991’s electric “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” star Costner and director Kevin Reynolds decided to test the adventure waters again with this admittedly blatant lift from the “Mad Max” series.
If it wasn’t for the obvious rips from the entire Mad Max canon, combined with star Kevin Costner’s immense ego, this would be nothing more than a failed featured attraction at some cut rate Florida aquatic theme park.
Mandy (2018)
Directed by Panos Cosmatos
influenced by Mad Max (1979), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Visuals Characters Themes
What follows is what I can only describe as a film that feels like a project that would be born if Gregg Araki and Kenneth Anger co-directed “Mad Max.” There’s a creepy “phantasmagorical atmosphere” at play (Cosmatos’ own words) with a groovy late 70s / early 80s horror vibe, from the gritty cinematography by Benjamin Loeb right down to Jóhann Jóhannsson‘s synth-heavy original score.
Mandy (Grade: B) is a midnight-movie festival onto itself; over two gonzo hours, it combines giallo, Clive Barker, Death Wish , prog rock, heavy metal, Heavy Metal, Guy Maddin, Mad Max, the dueling-chainsaw climax of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 , Nicolas Roeg, and Nicolas Cage at his most bugging-out unhinged.
Beyond Cage at his inventively manic best, there’s an almost unrecognizable Riseborough hitting intriguingly odd notes as the offbeat love interest, while the members of Jeremiah’s warped posse are individualily perverse in ways that recall the “Mad Max” universe.
It’s not long before Brother Swan summons a “Mad Max”-like biker gang of leather-bound, nail-pierced, LSD-consuming, human-sacrifice-taking demons (akin to the Cenobites from the “Hellraiser” franchise), who kidnap Mandy to become a new pawn in Sand’s hellish sect.
Then it’s essentially “Mad Max” for the Iron Maiden set.
The rest of “Mandy” plays like the bastard child of “Mad Max” and “Repo Man” by way of Rob Zombie.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
influenced by Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Visuals
It seems to be getting better with every installment not because these are actually better genre movies – they’re not in the same league as a Mad Max: Fury Road or The Raid: Redemption – but because they remain loyal to a form that an entire generation has been forced to outlive.
But such descriptions don’t do them justice: this Paris set-piece is a car chase in the same way that Mad Max: Fury Road is basically a car chase.
There are a lot of comparisons to Mad Max: Fury Road in quality, and not to sound hyperbolic, but there are moments here that recall great Spielberg action at its best.
Mad Max: Fury Road reset the potential of the blockbuster, with an artistic flair and madness never before seen; M:I 6 can be considered in the same class.
Fallout is the best action film since Mad Max: Fury Road , and it’s unique in the big-screen history of Mission: Impossible , in that it’s the first episode to be helmed by a return director—Christopher McQuarrie, who spearheaded 2015’s stellar Rogue Nation .
What Mission: Impossible - Fallout brings to the table is the best action choreography I’ve seen since Mad Max: Fury Road and a serviceably twisty espionage plot.
With obvious references to the old "Mad Max" films and today's politics, " Elysium " becomes a compelling if less-lasting summer follow-up for writer/director Neill Blomkamp after his Oscar-nominated "District 9."
There’s also George Miller’s Mad Max trilogy, John Carpenter’s Escape From … films, and the museum-ready miserablism of Alejandro González Iñárritu.
The early scenes of Max negotiating his frustrating, ugly world, with its crowded buses, interminable lines and cheap pleasures, reveal Blomkamp's debt to such dystopian predecessors -- mostly from the 1970s -- as "THX-1138," "Soylent Green," "Mad Max," "Blade Runner," Richard Stanley's "Hardware," "Children of Men," even Spielberg's "A.I.
Blomkamp filters a lot of other people’s sci-fi ideas into this, from “Johnny Mnemomic” and “Mad Max” to “Blade Runner”, “In Time” and “Iron Man.”
The inhabitants eke out a Mad Max existence of hopeless poverty and barely adequate medical services provided by overcrowded, rundown hospitals.
The Devil's Advocate (1997)
Directed by Taylor Hackford
influenced by The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
Themes
Although the film isn't a landmark combination of unique elements (viewers will find themselves reminded of both The Witches of Eastwick and The Firm), it has a lot of energy and the rather long 145-minute running time passes quickly.
In a performance reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's in "The Witches of Eastwick," Pacino is nothing short of enthralling, using to magnanimous effect the loud-mouthed hamminess that has become his post-Oscar trademark.
Metropolis (1927)
Directed by Fritz Lang
influenced Babe: Pig in the City (1998), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Visuals
But at its best it also plays like an inspired mashup of movies like Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Fred Niblo's Ben-Hur— silent epics that captivate audiences with their imagination, power, and panache.
Miller's most vivid imagery is always shot through with organic touches, including a warlord whose breathing machine bares real teeth and a slave labor system with elaborate gears and a sheer scale out of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
The opening scenes of Miller's world of red sand and redder blood in a place called "the Citadel" play out like a primitive version of Fritz Lang's 1927 futuristic "Metropolis" with white-powdered workers running like hamsters in a treadmill to power up a steam-punked system of pulleys and ropes for the benefit of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, from the original "Mad Max"), a dictator resembling a mashup of Batman's Bane, Darth Vader and King Henry VIII.
I love imaginary cities in the movies, from "Metropolis" (1926) to " Dark City ," and here is one to set beside the great ones.
To be fair, Batman Returns was an acrid mess, while Babe: Pig in the City clearly accomplishes much of its own eccentric mission as the world's unlikeliest, most Metropolis-inspired commercial kid-flavored flick in years.
The bad guys strike while Castle’s is at a family reunion in Puerto Rico, killing everyone, including his wife and son (in a scene that totally rips off George Miller’s “Mad Max”).
And then there’s the issue of the film’s maddening and repeated homages to George Miller’s Mad Max – the sequence featuring the death of Castle’s wife and son is an exacting re-creation of the same scene in Miller’s vastly superior (and equally grim) film, as is this film’s final act of explosive vengeance.
Trolls (2016)
Directed by Mike Mitchell
influenced by Happy Feet (2006), Happy Feet Two (2011)
Characters Plot
Imaginen unos protagonistas que remiten a Los Pitufos y unos malvados que se parecen bastante a los ogros de Shrek, un uso de la música en la línea de Happy Feet, un ritmo trepidante como en Kung Fu Panda y referencias varias a los cuentos de hadas como La Cenicienta o a Willy Wonka y tendrán una idea bastante clara de Trolls, un film vistoso (por momentos deslumbrante en términos de animación), pero no demasiado creativo ni mucho menos sorprendente.
Yet if you add Poppy's similarity to Inside Out 's Joy and echoes of 2006's penguin rave-up Happy Feet , Trolls risks resembling a box-ticking exercise rather than a show of fresh flavour.
La película está estructurada con canciones a lo Shrek, Happy Feet y siguen los nuevos clásicos musicales, con personajes que remiten a tantas otras películas infantiles, desde que los personajes se parecen y viven en una comunidad como Los Pitufos, Ramón es un ogro -sin serlo- como Shrek, hay quien se atraganta comiendo como el gordito de Charlie y la fábrica de chocolates, etc, etc, etc.
If you could take the Shrek, Happy Feet and Smurfs movies, toss them in a blender and hit the pulse button a few times, the result would be a pretty reasonable approximation of Trolls, an admittedly vibrant-looking but awfully recognizable animated musical comedy concoction (premiering at the London Film Festival this weekend ahead of its Nov. 4 domestic opening).
The musical numbers are a mix of re-worked pop hits dating from the sixties to the nineties (parents will catch tunes originally done by Kool and the Gang, Simon and Garfunkel, Earth, Wind and Fire and Gorillaz) and new songs written by Timberlake (who previously contributed songs to Happy Feet 2 and Shark Tale) and others.