Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.5

Mad Max: Fury Road Blu-ray Movie Review

A madman went into the desert and came back with one of the best films of the year...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown August 25, 2015

It isn't often I don't know how to begin a review. Or that I leave a theater at a complete loss for words. And not just once. Four times. Four separate bouts of speechlessness; shaking my head in bewildered awe, my poor mind incapable of wrapping itself around the entirety of a film. But here goes. Director George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road is a stunning, revelatory triumph of post-apocalyptic blood, bone and steel. It's thrilling. Jaw dropping. Mind blowing. An unassuming spectacle somehow steeped in minimalism and excess. A blistering two-hour chase without a break in action or a lull in storytelling; action and story are one. A visionary melding of reboot, reimagining and loosely connected sequel that requires no foreknowledge of previous Mad Max films yet builds upon everything that comes before it. A brazen dual-character piece confident enough to allow its title character to ride shotgun to a far more complex female antihero. A wildly inventive, beautifully brutal comicbook adaptation without a comicbook to adapt. A bold, breathtaking feast of incredible practical effects and death-defying stuntwork. A bold crossroads of old and new, where CG is used sparingly to enhance rather than create. It is, in a word, astonishing.

Is Miller's brash, unrelenting style divisive? Sure. Is Fury Road for everyone? Absolutely not. Does it matter? Not a bit. I've heard they don't make movies like this anymore more times than I care to count, but there's just one glaring problem with that sentiment: they've never made a movie like Mad Max: Fury Road.

Battle-hardened road warrior Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) wanders the wasteland of a nuclear holocaust alone, haunted by memories of those he's lost. Captured by a party of War Boys in the service of cruel, water-hording tyrant Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), Max finds himself strapped to the front of a car, hurtling through the desert with a needle in his neck; a "bloodbag" for an ailing War Boy named Nux (Nicholas Hoult). Immortan's army is in desperate pursuit of the once loyal Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a lieutenant who's not only stolen an armored war rig, but has liberated Joe's five breeder-wives: The Splendid Angharad (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), Toast the Knowing (Zoë Kravitz), Capable (Riley Keough), Cheedo the Fragile (Courtney Eaton) and The Dag (Abbey Lee). Furiosa is determined to reach "The Green Place" of her childhood, despite the deadly journey it requires, and soon finds a reluctant ally in Max. Now Furiosa and Max must lead the wives across hundreds of miles of wasteland, battling a legion of War Boys, several rival gangs, faction leaders like The Bullet Farmer (Richard Carter) and The People Eater (John Howard), Immortan's son Rictus Erectus (Nathan Jones), and Joe himself.

The simplicity of Fury Road's plot can't be overstated. "The first half is a chase. The second half is a race," quips production designer Colin Gibson, and he ain't kiddin'. Max is just trying to survive. Furiosa is just trying to get home. The wives are just trying to escape. Immortan Joe is just trying to reclaim what's his. Nux is just trying to go out in a blaze of glory. It doesn't get much simpler than that. Max doesn't trust Furiosa and Furiosa doesn't trust Max. Guns are drawn, wrenches are swung, blood is drawn, and the two forces of nature only ally with one another out of convenience, thankfully without a contrived romantic subplot to be found. These are warriors coming to respect one another as warriors, working together out of mutual self-preservation long before either one is willing to sacrifice his or her life for the other. And not any respect. Respect that's earned the hard way, through loss, long forgotten integrity and organic redemption.

Yet Miller and co-writers Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris deliver far more than two hours of bizarre characters, rampaging war machines, roaring engines, truck-top fights and guzzoline explosions. Fury Road is a masterclass in world building. Little is told, yes, but so much is conveyed that each return trip reveals detail after detail that only make Max's world that much richer. Everything from the cars to the various road tribes, V8 gods, artistry, post-apocalypse jargon, costumes, weapons, and tools of a mind-bent culture tell tiny stories all their own, and together weave a tale that's nearly inexhaustible. For some, that will no doubt frustrate. Questions are heaped atop questions, often with no answers to be had. But for those who enjoy exploring and experiencing a strange new world without being subjected to hours of exposition, Fury Road's wasteland will prove to be anything but a wasteland. Miller's ideas are so densely packed that dialogue couldn't possibly cover as much ground as the film's visuals. Fury Road in many ways evokes a silent movie. Max and Furiosa speak only when it's necessary, leaving most of the heavy lifting to the imagination, the nuances of the actors' performances, the suicidal stunts, crashes and vehicle shrapnel, and the deceptively gorgeous repurposed salvage that comprises the production design.

Hardy and Theron are outstanding, and in a film that nearly broke them. Between a grueling shooting schedule, horrifying conditions and a host of spirit-crushing challenges, Hardy and Theron often wondered exactly what they had signed up for, or whether Miller would be able to honor their very literal blood, sweat and tears with anything resembling a functional film. The supporting actors are wonderful too, without a miscast miscreant in the bunch. The villains climb over the top of over-the-top, but it only boosts the unruly, unrelenting lunacy of the world in which Max and Furiosa struggle to escape. The marriage of stomach-churning character, make-up, prosthetics, costumes, gore and other small touches only sells the illusion of a wasteland gone mad. It slowly but surely begins to make sense why a hulking, radiation-saturated monster like Immortan Joe could hold such sway over the thirsty masses. There's a logic to the illogic, a truth in the grotesque that renders the inhuman creatures Max faces all the more intriguing and their world that much more fascinating.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a high octane contradiction; a movie that shouldn't work for the very reasons it works so well. If I have one minor quibble (key words: minor and quibble) it's that Miller occasionally cranks the speed of shots too high. (Furiosa's first fight with Max being a prime example.) These split-second tweaks are meant to intensify an already intense moment, but instead rush what might be an even stronger action beat without the extra post-production meddling. Otherwise, Fury Road doesn't disappoint in the least. It's hands down the best action film of the summer season and easily one of the best films of 2015.

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

Mad Max: Fury Road would stun no matter how unwieldy Warner's 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation turned out to be. But the image doesn't falter or deviate for a second. Faithful to Miller and cinematographer John Seale's every last intention, the presentation is magnificent. The screen bleeds brilliant colors and bold primaries. Visceral reds, rusty oranges, savage yellows and stark, inky black levels, brought to life with vivid contrast and breathtaking visual punch. Detail is terrific too. Edges are razor sharp, textures are wonderfully resolved, delineation is excellent, and the finest veneer of filmic grain is present. Pore over the tattered costumes. The tumorous prosthetics. The welded steel hides of the wheeled war rigs and battle beasts. The dust. The dirt. The grime. The stubble. The scars. The wires. The bolts. The sparks. The hurtling debris. All without significant artifacting, banding, aliasing or other issues getting in the way of everything that's on display. (There are slight hints of ringing here and there, but it was present in the theatrical presentation and has nothing to do with the encode.) The Blu-ray release of Fury Road boasts one of the most striking video presentations of the year.

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

And not just one of the best video encodes... one of the best AV presentations as well. The Blu-ray release of Mad Max: Fury Road features a thunderous Dolby Atmos mix -- core: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 surround -- and it sounds every bit as good as it should. Engines scream. Explosions rip through the soundscape. War cries are blood-curdling. Metal flies in every direction, and through it all, voices are carefully prioritized. Dialogue isn't always intelligible, particularly whenever the War Boys attack Furiosa's rig or gunfire erupts, but it also wasn't designed to be. The film's sound design creates an experience rather than a comfortable, cozy soundfield, and Warner's Dolby mix follows suit. The track is wonderfully immersive, with head-turning directional effects, disarming cross-channel pans and enveloping ambience, and LFE output is as aggressive as it is commanding. Dynamics are spot on too, as is the Junkie XL score, which proves as full and operatic as the film's nonstop action. If I have any complaint it's that I have yet to get my hands on Atmos gear so that I might hear Fury Road in a whole new way. For now, though, Warner's Dolby TrueHD 7.1 surround track is more than enough.

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

• Maximum Fury: Filming Fury Road (HD, 29 minutes): A fairly extensive introduction to the practical effects insanity of Mad Max: Fury Road, the challenges faced by the production team and the cast, George Miller's vision and process, the development of everything from the storyboards to the script to the elaborate chase sequences, and much more. It would have been amazing to have a filmmaker's audio commentary or a more sprawling production documentary, but this will certainly do... at least until Warner announces the inevitable Furious Edition re-release (or whatever execs decide to call it) that we're sure to get in the near future.
• Fury on Four Wheels (HD, 23 minutes): The post-apocalyptic vehicles and war machines of Fury Road, from concept to design to full throttle, fully realized implementation. Production designer Colin Gibson and key members of the production team discuss bringing character, personality and purpose to each car and truck, and finding unique ways to surprise Miller and the audience with the high speed, high octane scrapyard fleet they managed to build from scratch.
• The Road Warriors: Max and Furiosa (HD, 11 minutes): Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron chat about their characters, marvel at Miller's methods and praise his foresight and command, laugh and shake their heads at all they went through in the desert, and hint at just how difficult the shoot was at times. Both actors are genuinely in awe of Miller and the final film, and humbled by what he was able to achieve with what, at times, struck them as chaotic and confusing.
• The Tools of the Wasteland (HD, 14 minutes): More production design goodness, this time focusing not on the vehicles but on all the little details of the world; the artistry, repurposed salvage materials, tools and weapons, costuming touches, steering wheels, guitars, and more.
• The Five Wives: So Shiny, So Chrome (HD, 11 minutes): Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (The Splendid Angharad), Riley Keough (Capable), Zoë Kravitz (Toast the Knowing), Abbey Lee (The Dag) and Courtney Eaton (Cheedo the Fragile) share stories about their time in Nambia, workshopping their characters, developing a sisterly bond, their personalities and costumes, and their contributions to the ensemble.
• Deleted Scenes (HD, 4 minutes): Three scenes are available (sans final FX work): "I Am a Milker," "Turn Every Grain of Sand" and "Let's Do It." Sadly, none of them are particularly memorable or interesting. "Sand" is the best available, but Miller was smart to boot all three.
• Crash & Smash (HD, 4 minutes): A compilation of pre-production tests, behind-the-scenes video and raw footage from the film that hasn't been enhanced with CGI in any way.

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

Mad Max: Fury Road isn't for everyone. I know. But that doesn't mean I understand how anyone could come to Miller's masterwork and walk away unimpressed. I couldn't get enough and cannot wait to see where Miller takes Max next. Warner's Blu-ray release is almost as impressive, despite whatever small disappointment may come from the studio's admittedly solid but less-than-overwhelming supplemental package. The BD's video and audio presentations are outstanding -- some of the best of the year -- which is fitting since Fury Road is one of the best films of the year. Highly recommended.