Review by SRFireside
Rating:
Mad Max is a interesting little piece of movie history. While the script isn’t all that compelling and the movie itself is obviously in the low budget arena Mad Max still stands out. Why? Because the movie for one doesn’t try to be more than what it is. It’s about fast moving vehicles and the heroes/villians who ride them. Move just a step above that and you get character development from both sides. Not much beyond that, but again the movie doesn’t pretend to have more.

This is Mel Gibson’s first starring movie role and he took the world by storm. This movie was a perfect vehicle to launch Mel’s career. It gave him a chance to play the hansome hero with a full range of emotions (which he pulls off quite well). If it weren’t for Gibson this movie wouldn’t be anywhere near as good. Sure you get some good supporting actors, but lets face it. This movie is about Max, and Max has to carry the story.

The supporting cast for Mel isn’t just the actors, but the vehicles as well. The police in this destopic future ride in fast interceptor cars. The bad guys are a nomad bike gang riding in various motor bikes. Max gets a really sweet car that becomes his trademark in not just this movie but the sequel as well. The cars definitely have character and the way they are filmed shows it. The chase scenes are fast and furious. No speeding up the cameras to make it look fast or enhanced special effects here. It’s the real deal. This is the sort of excitement the movie excels at.

There is a story behind all that road rage. The movie puts a fair amount of emphasis on Max the family man, which is essentially for setting up the “Mad” in him later on. My only complaint is that Mad Max ends up just being a series of events that happen one after the other. The tie ins are sparse and the script is weak because of it. Then again this isn’t Gone with the Wind. Still I have to at least mention it.

Details are sketchy on the video codec for this Blu Ray release. But I do know it will be presented in 1080p resolution no matter what they use. Since Mad Max was filmed back in 1979 using film stock that was inherently grainy this BR disk won’t be a “crystal clear” transfer when compared to current digitally recorded movies. This is a good thing by the way, as many fans of the older movies know this sort of grain gives a lot of character to a film and doesn’t really affect how sharp a picture you can get. Still I haven’t heard much else besides speculation regarding how much of that grain they decided to clean up for this release.

Audio is a different story. You are going to get both the original Australian and the U.S. dub in 5.1 DTS-HD surround sound. This is a cool thing because this is the first time you get both English dubs in 5.1 surround. As if that’s not enough there is also a French Dolby Digital 2.0 and mono Spanish track (subtitles in all three languages too).

This Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack will essentially be giving you all of the same special features that were on the DVD Special Edition that was released a few years back. Here’s a quick breakdown:

- Commentary by art director John Dowding, director of photography David Eggby, special effects supervisor Chris Murray, and film historian Tom Ridge. The same commentary from the Special Edition DVD.

- Mad Max: The Film Phenomenon is a nifty documentary that touches on some production aspects of the movie as well as the critical and box office reaction. Actually pretty good for a movie like this. Again this was on the SE DVD.

- Movie trailers and TV spots.

The DVD in this combo is almost a carbon copy of the Special Edition release. It looks like the commentary and maybe the movie trailers were taken out. Here’s what the DVD has:

- Mel Gibson: The Birth Of A Star is a documentary about, of course, Mel Gibson. How he landed the role and how much everybody likes his charm and good looks and strong leading man talents. If you are a fan of early Mel this is definitely going to be a treat. So far it looks like this feature will NOT be on the Blu-Ray disk.

- Mad Max: The Film Phenomenon is the exact same documentary as on the Blu-Ray.

- Photo Gallery with movie stills, posters and lobby cards.

- Trivia Track, which I don’t remember if it was in the Special Edition DVD or not.

To be honest Mad Max is not for everyone. If you demand blockbuster budget Hollywood style movies this isn’t it. If you demand high art or deep stories you won’t get it here either. However if you can get into a low budget movie (that doesn’t look all that low budget) that did one heck of a job in the car chasing department or are a fan of Mel Gibson then this is the movie for you.