"Beyond Thunderdome" is quite a bit smarter and more complex than its predecessor.

It's comic books in a Cuisinart, all costumes and cute monikers and no story, a sort of case history of just what's wrong with sequelitis.

This middle portion of the picture becomes dangerously preachy, but just before we and Max are bored, director Miller returns Max to his roots, a screaming chase sequence through a desertlike Australian landscape.

This teeming post-apocalyptic circus lacks the precision that made The Road Warrior a work of genius.