Product: Mad Max (1979)
Rating: 4.0
Mad Max gets the Blu-ray treatment & pioneers a new wave of action movies
1 DVD Disc & 1 Blu-ray Disc, released October 5, 2010"Mad Max" was one of the first movies to come out of Australia that got huge attention around the world and began the career of a star, Mel Gibson. It is the story of Max, a police officer in a time where bandits and lawlessness runs rampant who tries to get away from it all after something happens to his partner only to have more bad guys go after his wife and child leaving him only one choice -- get bad ass and take them all out in a big car action scene.Now it has come to Blu-ray with a DVD combo. The DVD has two featurettes - one on Mel Gibson as the "Birth of a Superstar" and one on "Mad Max: The Film Phenonmenon". When the film first came to the States, for some reason all the Australian voices were dubbed in American English! Are you for real, America??? Come on! It's not a different language, it's English for crying out loud! It's not like you can't understand their accent so even the great Mel Gibson superstar was dubbed over, geez. If you want to hear that version though, it is an audio option to switch to English dub. *smacks forehead*On the DVD is commentary with Jon Dowding, David Eggby, Chris Murray, and Tim Ridge where they go into detail about how certain stunts were performed and how they could only afford to put Gibson in actual leather clothes while everyone else was sporting vinyl. The DVD also has trailers, a Road Rants trivia and fun track, TV spots, and a photo gallery. The Blu-ray disc also has the "Mad Max: The Film Phenonmenon" and commentary with a clearer picture and sound.The difficult thing about a release like this now is that in all the bonus features talking about what a star he is, how beautiful, how talented, how much money he has made, it is all tainted with the reality of the public's current view of him after too many incidents have occurred that have tarnished his reputation as an actor, director, and producer. Mel Gibson was the first Australian actor to be paid a million dollars for a movie and the first actor ever from any country to be paid $25 million for a movie. It is true that "Mad Max" is a classic for high octane adrenaline action movies and was a forerunner for every "Fast & the Furious", "Transporter", and other crazy car movies. Not only did it reinvent action and the chase scene, it was one of the first apocalyptic movies which led the way for every other interpretation of what happens after....fill in the blank of a major event here as in "The Book of Eli" earlier this year.If you dig this classic, it's not a bad deal at all for all the stuff you get and you just have to listen to them raving about Gibson with an open mind if you aren't a big fan of his shenanigans right now. It was released both in DVD packaging (the one I was sent) and in Blu-ray packaging (which is the better deal).