Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Blu-ray Movie Review

Hell hath no fury like a one-armed woman scorned.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III August 8, 2024

Released nearly a full decade after the game-changing spectacle of Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller and his crew return with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga to give the previous film's one-armed heroine a full-life origin story. Cynics might dismiss it as a money-minded method to milk more movie mileage out of this post-apocalyptic franchise, but not so: Furiosa's script was written before Fury Road began filming and the original plan was to shoot them simultaneously. That sadly didn't work out for financial reasons, so Furiosa ended up in Purgatory rather than Valhalla.

For a synopsis and critique of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, please see my recent 4K review as well as Brian Orndorf's theatrical coverage. Warner Bros.' separate Blu-ray edition serves as a half-life runner-up to the UHD, unavoidably faltering a bit in the visual department and even omitting a few minor bonus features to save disc space.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

As always, please see my recent review of the separate 4K edition for a general overview of Furiosa's stylized visual aesthetic, which obviously shares more than a few similarities to Fury Road. The main differences here inarguably come down to disc encoding and native format, to say nothing about the lack of HDR. But native format boundaries aside, the encoding here falls a little short: Warner Bros. has seen fit to drop three bonus featurettes from this disc -- presumably to conserve disc space for the main feature -- and while it kinda does the trick, large and lengthy portions of Furiosa rarely reach above the 15-25Mpbs mark. This isn't necessarily a doom-and-gloom scenario for reasons outlined in my linked 4K review (namely, the aspect ratio and limited color palette), yet posterization and macro blocking can both be more easily spotted in wide shots, crowded compositions, and of course fast-movie action sequences. On the whole, this dual-layered disc does a decent job of keeping things under control, and in most cases should actually hold up well enough on small to mid-sized displays. Anything over 55"-65" will more easily reveal these shortcomings... so for that reason, fans with 4K setups will certainly want to spend a few extra bucks for the UHD version.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This Blu-ray contains the same default Dolby Atmos mix as the 4K edition, so please see that linked review for more details. Please note that the foreign dub and subtitle options are different on this disc.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with similar yet different poster-themed cover artwork; oddly enough, my Blu-ray copy also did not include a slipcover. On-disc bonus features are different too, as it also omits three featurettes found on the 4K edition; these two remaining extras -- both of them quite good -- are listed below in name only, but full details can be found in my linked review. This is pretty disappointing, if you ask me.

• Highway to Valhalla: In Pursuit of Furiosa (57:00)

• Furiosa: Stowaway to Nowhere (11:13)

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

George Miller's Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga may have underperformed at the box office earlier this year, but in many ways it's about as impressive as fans could've hoped for under the circumstances. Initially planned to be shot alongside Fury Road but stuck in development hell for several years due to contract and budget disputes, its long-delayed completion shows that Miller and company were able to pick up almost right where they left off. Whether or not you saw this one in theaters, Furiosa is worth picking up on home video... and while I clearly favor the separate 4K edition over this Blu-ray for two obvious reasons, it's still got a top-tier Atmos mix and a few solid extras too. Recommended.