The stunning improvements in detail, lush colours, texture and depth, with fine filmic grain only occasionally fluctuating, and simply no signs of unruly, excessive DNR, all leave this a masterful 4K presentation.ĭetail is outstanding. Mad Max was a low budget 1979 flick, and, working from that premise, there's absolutely no denying that this new native 4K presentation - with Dolby Vision to boot - is far better than anybody could have ever expected the film to look. Although the apocalypse basically occurs as a montage prologue in the sequel, Miller set the stage here for a plausible, palpable implosion, and it remains one of the great directorial debuts of all time and a hell of a start to an enduring franchise. Miller does a fantastic job bringing together that iconic orchestral score, some exquisite practical stunt-driven vehicular mayhem (the opening sequence is still tremendous), impressive filming (the on-the-road feel of speed is brilliant), colourful characters, nascent super-vehicles (the augmented 'V8 Interceptor') and a feeling of a world about to collapse into utter chaos. Absolutely scene-stealing is the late Hugh Keays-Byrne (who would return for Fury Road) as the eccentric gang leader, Toecutter, who gives a genuine sense of unpredictable, psychopathic threat to the seemingly unstoppable fleet of bikers who rule the streets. It would be an iconic role, but - as with the franchise on the whole, it would largely be unlike anything we'd see from Max later down the line this was Mad Max: Begins, in modern terms, and for the majority of the movie, he's just the last good cop, trying his best to keep himself and his family out of trouble. Gibson may have gone on to forge these familiar vengeful icons across the decades, but he was still fresh-faced and almost out of his depth in Mad Max, his character playing catch-up for the duration until the final act's transformation. Sure, it's rough around the edges - the feature was shot for a few hundred thousand, and edited and scored in the director's kitchen - but that's only part of the charm, and it is hard to fault a single frame, with Miller displaying a striking talent with this debut, and bringing star-in-the-making Mel Gibson along for the brutal ride. It's a lean shark of a pre-apocalypse revenge flick. Inspired by the newspaper reports during the 70s oil crisis, which told of drivers prepared to go to great - violent - lengths to get fuel (a situation which would, somewhat amusingly, would be replicated during the pandemic with the 'toilet paper crisis'), Miller's fable is simple in construction and characterisation, but almost flawless in execution. Miller's fable is simple in construction and characterisation, but almost flawless in execution Max Rockatansky is one of the elite drivers, increasingly disillusioned by the violence he experiences on the job, and the impotence of the police force at stopping it, and eventually targeted by a vicious gang who want him to pay for the death of one of their own. The Main Force Patrol give chase, but are outnumbered and largely incapable of keeping up with the fuel-injected suicide machines that bomb around the highways. The story, set in 'near-future' Australia, has crime at an all-time high, and the police unable to main control over the dangerous streets, where anarchic gangs cause mayhem. Mad Max: Fury Road may have reignited a franchise which was known for its post-apocalyptic vehicular mayhem, but the series actually started before the apocalypse, with a no-budget indie flick that director George Miller put together using a largely undiscovered cast, a real biker gang and unsurprisingly raw, practical stunts. George Miller's 1979 classic, which kick-started an enduring franchise, and launched Mel Gibson's career, gets the 4K Dolby Vision treatment.
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