Only the best drivers-education video EVER: "The Road Warrior"

I can't recall the exact order in which I watched the "Mad Max" trilogy, but I know it wasn't the right one. I think I first saw "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" on HBO when I was 13 or so, thinking it was pretty cool. Even today, I liked to propose Thunderdome as a way to settle arguments. "Two men enter, one man leave! Two men enter, one man leave!"

Then I think I saw "The Road Warrior" a few years later and realized what a real "Mad Max" movie was. Finally, I rented the original "Mad Max" after college, thinking it wasn't bad but that it suffered from too much family stuff and not enough crash-crash, kill-kill. Still, you gotta start somewhere, and the first "Max" does a good job setting up the character -- surliness, psychosis and all.

No question, though, that "Warrior" is the "Empire Strikes Back" of this trilogy -- far and away the best installment. As you may know, the original title is "Mad Max 2," but since U.S. audiences really hadn't seen the first "Max," it got a more generic, stand-alone title. That works, though, because the movie can stand alone. It helps to know why Max is out in the wasteland, roaming around alone, but it's not vital. In fact, not knowing his background makes him more of a mystery and makes for a simpler story about a stranger who takes on a band of murderous scavengers.

Did I say the plot is simple? In post-apocalyptic Australia, Max (Mel "Air America" Gibson) comes across a group of people holed up in an oil refinery. The bandits want the fuel, the people just want to make it out alive. There's no time wasted on how they got there and what they'll do when they leave -- just a focus on survival. That's all Max does, too, but he sees a chance first to set himself up with fuel, then to do the right thing and help the trapped folks get away.

What makes this movie so much fun? For one, the lean-and-mean story allows for great characters. Max may be sullen and quiet, but the villains include a metal-masked, leather briefs-wearing leader named Lord Humungus and his No. 1 "dog of war," a chaps-wearing, Mohawked mongrel who really likes killing people. On Max's side, we have The Gyro Captain, a gangly guy with a small helicopter who provides some comic relief. Skulking around the refinery is The Feral Kid, a grunting tyke with a razor-sharp boomerang.

That boomerang comes into play, of course, and it's far from the only violence as the bandits try to kill anyone who leaves the refinery. That allows for several great chase scenes, with wildly tricked-out cars loaded with guys shooting arrows and swinging chains at their prey. We're talking hardcore pursuit that goes on a lot longer and has more stunts than any other movie I can think of -- people flying through the air, cars flipping over ... all that good stuff.

It's enough, in fact, that you really don't think too much about Mr. Passion himself. Gibson was young and mostly unknown when "Warrior" came out, and he really just plays the hard man who cares only about himself. That's a role that, oh, several dozen other actors could have handled just as well, and the movie benefits from not having Max visibly suffer a crisis of conscience. Even when he comes back to the refinery a second time, there's not a lot of soul-searching and hand-wringing about him helping the group. He wants to do it, so he does it.

For this reason, I can still enjoy the "Mad Max" movies without thinking too much about our man Mel going all "Catholics are best" on us. (And I'm Catholic.) And really, what's the bigger insult -- "The Passion of the Christ" or "Bird on a Wire?"