The wandering "Max" (Mel Gibson) finds himself in the brutal "Bartertown" ruled either by "Aunty Entity" (Tina Turner) or "Master" (Angelo Rossitto) depending on whether or not you needed electricity! The former, and her devious cohort "The Collector" (the always reliable Frank Thring) concoct a plan by which they can use the ingenuity of "Max" to sort out this power struggle once and for all. That goes to plan, to a certain extent, but when that sense of decency still within our hero causes him to defy his new boss, he is consigned to the "gulag" whereupon he alights upon some youngsters who believe him a god capable of flying them to safety. When he tries to point out that they have the wrong man, dissent amongst these children leads him, and them, back for a final confrontation with the "Aunty". Tina Turner was very much at the top of her musical renaissance when this was made, and had she featured a little more then perhaps we could have better developed the sense of menace here. As it is, she doesn't and once we end up in feral kindergarten territory, the story just becomes predicable and really rather dull. "We Don't Need Another Hero" tops it all off well, but much of the rest of this is pretty unremarkable and may well sound the death knell for this now well spent anti-hero.
