mad max

Aussie exploitation began – and pretty much peaked – with the Mad Max (1979), director George Miller’s nasty revenge drama set in a dystopian semi-future where the roads are ruled by delinquent motorheads barely kept in check by an undermanned police force, including their top interceptor: Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson). But the worldwide phenomenon of Max’s popularity didn’t kick in until the sequel – The Road Warrior – was released in 1981, starting an avalanche of copycat apocalyptic action movies that inevitably paled in comparison.

Having seen what the franchise has become, it’s interesting to look back on how small the first film began, not just from a budgetary perspective but also in the scale of its storytelling. Mad Max is an origin story in the truest sense, introducing its hero with a sort of cinematic curtain raising; somewhere between the birth of a Greek god and Smokey and the Bandit. Certainly, no one had ever captured high-speed vehicular destruction like this before. Miller’s camera doesn’t just put you in the driver’s seat; it leaves you scraped and bloody along the side of the road.

But after the stunning opening sequence, things settle down to a slow burn as Max tries to protect his young family from angry gang members out to avenge their fallen comrade. Even if you can see where it’s headed, the tragedy waiting just around the corner still holds quite an impact…expressed brilliantly by one child’s shoe on an empty expanse of road. Released in the US with dubbed dialogue track (apparently those Aussie accents were just much in ’79), the film didn’t get an accurate update until the DVD era, finally popping up on Blu-ray as a stand-alone MGM release and part of the Warner Brothers Mad Max Collection tin.

Shout Factory’s new Blu-ray release seems to recycle the same transfer (there’s no mention of any remastering in the marketing materials) but backs it up with a suped-up slate of extras. The original audio commentary from DP David Eggby and art director Jon Dowding is carried over (director George Miller doesn’t isn’t anywhere to be found on the disc) along with several featurettes: Mel Gibson: The Birth of a Superstar and Mad Max: The Film Phenomenon. Gibson himself does contribute his thoughts as part of a half-hour or so series of new interviews with other members of the cast and crew. The facts are essentially just reshuffled into a new format but hearing them from Max’s own mouth makes everything a bit more livelily.

The usual TV spots, trailers and photo galleries are nice added value items, as is the new cover artwork, which features the original (and more iconic) poster on the back. There’s an array of soundtrack choices, including the terrible U.S. dub, original 2.0 mono and 5.1 remix which tends to bury the dialogue in one or two places but adds some nice directional effects. If this one isn’t already part of your collection, Shout Factory is offering a very complete, comprehensive and affordable way to catch up on the Mad Max mythology before this summer’s reboot.