Mad Max: Fury Road Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Mad Max: Fury Road Blu-ray Movie Review

All This Over a Family Squabble

Reviewed by Michael Reuben December 2, 2016

George Miller's latest action epic, Mad Max: Fury Road, has already been released in three hi-def versions: standard Blu-ray, 3D and 4K UHD. Add to those a fourth, the Black & Chrome Edition, a black-and-white rendition of the film specially prepared by Miller and his chief colorist, Eric Whipp. According to the brief introduction included with this version, Miller first got the idea during a scoring session for The Road Warrior, when he watched the orchestra performing against a so-called "black-and-white dupe", which he found so arresting that he wished he'd made the movie that way. Thirty-five years later, the magic of digital tools has allowed him to realize his dream of a B&W Mad Max movie. In an observation that will no doubt provoke controversy over revisionism, Miller says that this new edition of Fury Road is, for him, the best version of the movie.

Fury Road: B&C was first released in late October as part of an expensive Amazon-exclusive package called Mad Max: High Octane Collection. It is now being released separately in a two-disc package with a copy of the original Fury Road Blu-ray. The B&C version occupies its own disc, but, except for the introduction by Miller, there are no new extras. (A more reasonably priced version of the High Octane Collection is also being released.)

As I said in reviewing Fury Road's 4K disc, I cannot improve on Kenneth Brown's eloquent appraisal of the film, which can be found in the site's Blu-ray review.

Mad Max: Fury Road Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mad Max: Fury Road is a visually stunning experience in any of its versions, but the image on the 1080p, AVC-encoded B&C Edition is unlike all the others. Where Miller's dystopian landscape appeared perilously beautiful in color, in black-and-white it is positively otherworldly. Precise re-grading has retained a sense of depth and texture, but the elimination of color accentuates shapes and compositions so that Max, Furiosa and the five wives seem even more isolated against the vast wasteland filled with pursuing hordes. The elaborate carvings and contraptions of The Citadel acquire the haunting quality of an abstract painting, and the painted and tattooed War Boys, young and old, seem like aliens from another realm. Immortan Joe's deformities lose some of their repugnance without color, but Joe himself gains in threat and stature. The immense rock formations of the Canyon look like something spit out of the sand by giants, and the sand storm into which Furiosa fearlessly drives the War Rig loses its colorful beauty and acquires the awe-inspiring terror of some Old Testament plague.

Miller has always been an expert at choreographing and photographing action without sacrificing narrative coherence, but the removal of color from the frame makes Fury Road's complex interplay of people and vehicles even clearer and easier to follow. Some of the production design's humorously absurd touches get lost (e.g., the Doof-mobile, with its flame-throwing guitar), but it's a small tradeoff for the gain in clarity of action. The nighttime sequences integrate into the film more smoothly in B&W, shedding the artificial blue that distinguished them from daylight in the color version.

Are there sacrifices? Of course. The five wives are less visually distinctive without their individual hair colors (Capable's carrot top is particularly missed), and the troops commanded by Immortan Joe, the People Eater and the Bullet Farmer are less individuated, blending into an undifferentiated mass of hostiles. The same effect applies to the hordes of Joe's subjects at The Citadel, who merge into a writhing crowd of bodies. The use of Max as a "blood bag" is more abstract and less obviously exploitative without the red flowing through the tube.

I suspect that one's reaction to these various tradeoffs in the B&C Edition will largely depend on one's pre-existing attitude toward B&W photography, but for my money the net effect of Miller's re-imagining is to enhance Fury Road's sense of epic adventure and, especially with Max and Furiosa, to consolidate their stature as figures of legend. In this latest presentation, you can't help but notice how often Miller situates his two heroes as lone figures facing a vast wilderness. Each of these lost souls has traveled a long and painful road, and an even harder one stands between them and the redemption they both seek. In the B&C Edition, their paths appear even more daunting.

Warner's theatrical department, which has recently showed signs of improving its mastering practices, has fallen back on bad old habits by mastering the B&C Edition at an average bitrate of 21.88 Mbps, leaving almost 19 GB unused on the BD-50. The encode is capable enough, but there is no excuse for failing to take advantage of the available space. For this reason alone, the video score has been slightly reduced.

Mad Max: Fury Road Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Fury Road: B&C contains the same Dolby Atmos and embedded Dolby TrueHD 7.1 soundtracks previously reviewed here and here. There's so much to hear in the Oscar-winning sound design that I pick up new details with each viewing.

Mad Max: Fury Road Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The sole new extra is director Miller's introduction (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:37), which can be optionally played before the film. The included standard Blu-ray contains the same extras previously reviewed.

It should also be noted that, unlike all previous Blu-ray releases of Fury Road, the B&C Edition does not include an Ultraviolet digital copy.

Mad Max: Fury Road Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

For anyone who hasn't yet acquired Mad Max: Fury Road on Blu-ray (and who doesn't care about 3D, 4K or Ultraviolet), the Black & Chrome Edition is an easy recommendation, because you get both the theatrical release and Miller's new re-imagining of the film in iconic black-and-white. For anyone who already owns any of the previous versions of Fury Road, the choice is harder. There will undoubtedly be some viewers who, like Miller, find the B&C rendition so compelling that it becomes their preferred version, but I suspect that most fans will see it more as a curiosity. My own inclination is toward the 3D presentation, because there are a number of scenes (e.g., the Rig's final crash) that leap off the screen. But I can also see myself returning to the B&C Edition, because its stark vision of lonely figures moving through a blighted landscape has a poetry I haven't seen in any other version of the film. Judge for yourself.