The once & future Mel

Tom Cruise and Michael Jackson may have gotten their share of incredulous headlines , but no one has lost it in public with such can't-look-away abandon as Mel Gibson. From his battles with gay activists over "Braveheart" to his highly vocal part in the controversy over "The Passion of the Christ," Gibson has laughed dementedly all the way to the bank.

Celebrity craziness has a tendency toward the bipolar, though, and his July arrest for drunken driving and subsequent anti-Semitic meltdown put the star's dark side under the spotlight, seriously damaging the box-office potential for his newest film, the Mayan epic "Apocalypto." The film opens Friday, and the director doesn't appear in it, which, in a way, is a shame.

Originally a stalwart hunk, Gibson has turned in increasingly squirrelly performances over the years; it could be argued that he went gonzo onscreen only after he stopped his party-animal ways and found religion in the 1990s. If the screen is his therapy, it's our bewildered entertainment. Following is a kook's tour of Mel's madness.

"Mad Max" (1979), "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior" (1981), "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" (1985)

"Two days ago, I saw a vehicle that would haul that tanker. You want to get out of here? You talk to me." Thus swaggers "Mad" Max Rockatansky in "The Road Warrior," the second entry of Australian director George Miller's post-apocalyptic, post-punk, dystopian trilogy. Most Americans got their first glimpse of Gibson here, as an Aussie-accented, scar-faced, reluctant savior clad in leather armor worthy of a fetish party. Despite epic car crashes and extreme, pre-CGI stunts, Gibson's performance remains surprisingly under control. By the time the third film, "Beyond Thunderdome," rears its Mohawked (and increasingly silly) head, Tina Turner's snarl nearly upstages Mel's best nihilistic tendencies.

ETHAN GILSDORF

"The Bounty" (1984)

When Gibson's revisionist, petulant Fletcher Christian goes native and gets a Tahitian tattoo, he gives us a couple of facial tics but lets out nary a yelp. Clearly, he's saving his energy -- and his vocal c ords -- for the pivotal moment when he finally mutinies against Anthony Hopkins's mostly reasonable Captain Bligh. Christian's eyes turn wild, his neck veins bulge, and he lashes out at everyone, with him or against him. "I am in hell!" he howls. Talk about paradise lost.

TOM RUSSO

"Lethal Weapon" (1987)

The entire hook of Richard Donner's salt-and-pepper thriller was that Gibson's character, grieving L A cop Martin Riggs , was across-the-board nuts: diving off high buildings, hammering his head with his fists, tossing out the random Three Stooges homage. It worked like a psycho charm in this film, less so in the sequels , and it ' s notable that this is arguably where the star transformed from a strong, silent type to the Mad Mel we know and love/loathe/live with.

TY BURR

"Hamlet" (1990)

Contrary to the other Hamlets, Gibson's didn't bother with the aggrieved son's vivid melancholy. His father's been killed and his mother has taken up with someone new. So he cracks wide open and the furious confusion bleeds out all over Franco Zeff i relli's movie. Connecting the prince's unhinged state to the actor playing him doesn't require a leap. Shakespeare even provides Hamlet a famous speech that seems apt for whatever ailed Gibson: " Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them?"

WESLEY MORRIS

"Braveheart" (1995)

Even without the battle woad , Gibson's highly inaccurate, galloping assault on Scottish history in "Braveheart" was bound to send British moviegoers into a rage. So over-the-top Hollywood was the Aussie director-actor's incendiary portrait of William Wallace that when a statue resembling the kilted Gibson went up by another Wallace monument near Stirling, Scotland, vandals took a hammer to it. The statue, bearing the word "freedom" (the film's rallying cry), then got a cage, while the movie got multiple Oscars.

JANICE PAGE

"Conspiracy Theory" (1997)

In Richard Donner's hokey thriller, released 10 years after he and Gibson teamed up for "Lethal Weapon," the actor plays Jerry Fletcher , a garrulous New York cab driver who rants about fluoride, the Vatican, and CIA coverups to anyone who'll listen. Needless to say, Gibson's wild-eyed, overblown performance is as deranged as the monologue following his much-publicized arrest. But it's no surprise the delusional Fletcher turns out to be a credible charmer in disguise: Gibson, who has spouted out-there views on the Holocaust and the "new world order" over the years, is merely spoofing himself.

DAMON SMITH

"What Women Want" (2000)

Back when Gibson still oozed boyish charm -- and in this case a bit of girlish charm, too -- he played a chauvinistic pig of an ad exec who, after an accident, finds himself able to hear what women are thinking. Along the way to figuring out the other sex, he tries his hand at the other sex. He purifies his pores. He shaves his legs. He wears pantyhose. He becomes a sensitive man, and a satiny, exfoliated one at that.

LYNDA GOROV

"Chicken Run" (2000)

As the voice of Rocky the Flying Rooster -- a circus runaway who stumbles upon a brood of hens determined to fly the coop -- Gibson plays a claymation cad with marquee billing. "You're certifiable!" he blusters in an argument with Ginger, the plucky chick who masterminds escape from an evil farmer. The barnyard, fenced with chicken wire, ominously insinuates a concentration camp, but Rocky is a self-centered cock of the walk: "Keep thinking those flighty thoughts!" he clucks blithely.

JAMES SULLIVAN

"The Million Dollar Hotel" (2000)

Wim Wenders's little-seen film raises a rarely asked question: Is Mel on a leash scarier than Mel unloosed? Third-billed, he plays an FBI agent investigating a mysterious death in a supremely seedy hotel in downtown LA. His character, Skinner , wears a neck and back brace that barely allows him to move. He was also born with a third arm (later amputated). "I could play the violin and wipe [myself] at the same time," he boasts. It's the weirdest onscreen mind-body relationship since Dr. Strangelove's .

MARK FEENEY