Director George Miller’s follow-up to his own 1979 hit Mad Max is proof that not all sequels are inferior to their originals. If anything, this brutal sci-fi action film is even more intense and exciting than its predecessor, although the state of its post-apocalyptic world has only become worse. Several years after the deaths of his wife and child, Max (Mel Gibson) has become a nomad, wandering an Australian outback that has fallen into tribal warfare conducted from scattered armed camps. After a road battle with villain Wez (Vernon Wells), Max meets up with the odd Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence), who takes him to the camp of a sympathetic group led by Pappagallo (Mike Preston). As Pappagallo’s people are camped at a refinery, Max plans to take their oil (more precious than gold in this world) but eventually joins them to fight a band of marauders led by the evil Humungus (Kjell Nilsson). The stunning climax features a heart-pounding chase scene involving an oil tanker-truck and a frenzied rush for the coast, with Humungus and his forces in pursuit.
Video
For this 2.40:1 transfer Warner Brothers went with a VC-1 encode on a BD25. This transfer has wonderful color accuracy and was very sharp at the same time. Skin tones were spot-on and blacks were very well reproduced. Some of this movie includes dark scenes, so the accuracy in the dark images was a nice improvement over the DVD version. Although this movie has quite a few action sequences throughout I saw absolutely no macro blocking at all in any of the explosion or fast-moving sequences. This film does however have a fair amount of film grain and film debris. In a way it reminded me a lot of Rocky on Blu-ray or Field of Dreams on HD DVD. This is most likely as the Director intended, so I will not hold this against the overall transfer. I will however hold the amount of film debris I saw on this transfer against my over-all rating for this release. Film debris was evident on most of the bright scenes, especially in many of the desert scenes. I also noticed some noise around the image of each actor in bright scenes. Even with these shortcomings, the video on this release is a solid improvement over the DVD version.
Audio
Audio is where this new transfer excels over its DVD counterpart. As fans of this film know, this movie has several explosion scenes. I watched this movie using the Dolby Digital 5.1 option. The dialog was extremely well presented on the center channel of the 7.1 audio set-up. I could hear conversation much much better then the DVD version of this film. This new transfer also makes good use of LFE and the surrounds, especially during several explosion scenes towards the end of the movie. Audio is where I feel this new transfer is the most improved over its DVD counterpart. It is a substantial improvement.
Special Features
Not a whole lot to mention here as there are only two extras found on this disc. We get the 480p theatrical trailer, which for all intents and purposes looks horrible and an audio commentary from the Director and Cinematographer.
Final Thoughts
I was not blown away with this release. My only gripe about the video is that I wish it had less film debris as I feel the film grain was intended by the Director. The audio quality on the other hand is great. Truly a substantial improvement over the DVD release. Now all dialog is completely audible and we even get good use of LFE and surrounds in some of the action/explosion sequences. I would highly recommend this purchase for any fan of this film as it is a very nice improvement over the DVD version.
