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Amazon.co.uk Review
The story of Mel Gibson's stately anti-hero begins in Mad Max, George Miller's low-budget debut, in which Max is a "Bronze" (cop) in an unspecified post-apocalyptic future with a buddy-partner and family. But, unlike most films set in the devastated future, Mad Max is notable because it is poised between our industrialised world and total regression to medieval conditions. The scale tips towards disintegration when the Glory Riders burn into town on their bikes like an overcharged cadre of Brando's Wild Ones. Representing the active chaos that will eventually overwhelm the dying vestiges of civil society they take everything dear to Max, who then has to exact due revenge. His flight into the same wilds that created the villains artfully sets up the morally ambiguous character of the subsequent films. --Alan E Rapp, Amazon.com
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
What a joke that original US DVD release of Mad Max was, American english only and poor picture quality.
I've just recieved this recently released UK version and I'm very happy. You can select the original Australian sound track and the Picture and sound quality is very good ( I zoomed the picture 2x with my Toshiba DVD Player and the Picture Quality still stayed very good ). The Picture format on this DVD is Widescreen 2.35:1.
This UK release of Mad Max on DVD is worth buying...
I've just recieved this recently released UK version and I'm very happy. You can select the original Australian sound track and the Picture and sound quality is very good ( I zoomed the picture 2x with my Toshiba DVD Player and the Picture Quality still stayed very good ). The Picture format on this DVD is Widescreen 2.35:1.
This UK release of Mad Max on DVD is worth buying...
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Mad Max 2 is the better film, for sure: it's bigger, grislier, and more exciting. But the original is very good not just because it explains why Max is perturbed, but because it does so without compromising his character's silent and innate masculinity - which is some feat considering the amount of skin-tight leather on show.
Max himself - skilfully underplayed by Mel Gibson - is at the heart of all the main narrative turns. It's he who kills the Nightrider; his best friend who's murdered by the gang that wants to get to him; his family who are targeted for the final showdown. And yet Max is on screen quite rarely. Not that he needs to be seen: he is an archetype of sorts; the last spring of morality in an apocalyptic desert.
Thanks to a tight and sympathetic script, Max and Jessie's relationship is entirely convincing. The music, by Brian May (no, not that one), is superbly melodramatic; always complementary, never intrusive.
It's not complex. At one point Max tells his boss that if he spends any more time on the road he'll "be one of them" - we know what territory we're in, and it's not about blurring moral boundaries; it's about raw, red-blooded revenge.
Max himself - skilfully underplayed by Mel Gibson - is at the heart of all the main narrative turns. It's he who kills the Nightrider; his best friend who's murdered by the gang that wants to get to him; his family who are targeted for the final showdown. And yet Max is on screen quite rarely. Not that he needs to be seen: he is an archetype of sorts; the last spring of morality in an apocalyptic desert.
Thanks to a tight and sympathetic script, Max and Jessie's relationship is entirely convincing. The music, by Brian May (no, not that one), is superbly melodramatic; always complementary, never intrusive.
It's not complex. At one point Max tells his boss that if he spends any more time on the road he'll "be one of them" - we know what territory we're in, and it's not about blurring moral boundaries; it's about raw, red-blooded revenge.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Watching George Miller's directorial breakthrough again confirms one thing among many others: that this is a filmmaker with not only an excellent spatial sense but also a nice appreciation of landscapes.
This should have been as exciting a cinematic decut for the watching film world as Spielberg's or Tarantino's - whether they actually did herald Miller's arrival in the way he deserved I am too young to tell.
But what a great movie. A Fantastic marriage of cop flick and low-budget exploitationer, Miller's movie is to this genre (whatever the hell that is) what The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is to American horror.
Taking Einstein's assertion that World War IV would be fought with bows and arrows as his cue, Miller sets his movie in (we assume) a future Australia inhabited by gangs
of barbaric bikers who wage high-speed war on the country roads.
When one of their clan, the Knightrider, is killed in a high-speed prison break, his peers, led by the psychotic Toecutter, vow revenge on Max Kotanski, the one they hold responsible.
What sets Mad Max Apart from similar films is its many pleasing quirks: the bikers - like the even more primitive barbarians in part 2 - are a shrewd mix of pre-civilisation warrior and punkish, androgynous psycho.
This should have been as exciting a cinematic decut for the watching film world as Spielberg's or Tarantino's - whether they actually did herald Miller's arrival in the way he deserved I am too young to tell.
But what a great movie. A Fantastic marriage of cop flick and low-budget exploitationer, Miller's movie is to this genre (whatever the hell that is) what The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is to American horror.
Taking Einstein's assertion that World War IV would be fought with bows and arrows as his cue, Miller sets his movie in (we assume) a future Australia inhabited by gangs
of barbaric bikers who wage high-speed war on the country roads.
When one of their clan, the Knightrider, is killed in a high-speed prison break, his peers, led by the psychotic Toecutter, vow revenge on Max Kotanski, the one they hold responsible.
What sets Mad Max Apart from similar films is its many pleasing quirks: the bikers - like the even more primitive barbarians in part 2 - are a shrewd mix of pre-civilisation warrior and punkish, androgynous psycho.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
not bad for time
Having not seen this film for a very long time we was a little dissapointed that it was not quite as we remember. Read more
Published 1 month ago by JandP
Mad Max Memories
First watched the cinema release during '79 and remembered the violence and the car chase scenes. Watched it again in 2010 and the violence and chase scenes are just as good. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Radiation Raver
Great movie, Great price
A good film, at a superb price, in it's original widescreen format, and with English and Australian soundtracks.
Published on 24 July 2009 by J. Rusbridge
Nowhere near as good as Mad Max 2
...Well, it isn't. This may be where the Mad Max trilogy started, but it's a long way from being as good as 2. Read more
Published on 31 Dec 2008 by Grev
High speed road movie that changed cinema
High speed chases, open endless roads and nomad bikers in a post-apocalyptic vision of the future. Mel Gibson is Max, a police/highway patrolman who is determined to live his life... Read more
Published on 3 Mar 2008 by redmanshouts
Road Kill
This is a very slow movie which seems like the script wasnt quite finished..maby i need to see the trilogy to appreciate it..but i was not impressed not very mad I say. Read more
Published on 1 Dec 2007 by Lan
The Last Law in a World Gone Out Of Control!!!
All I can say about this cult classic is buy it as it's one of the best road movie\apocalyptic science fiction movies you will ever see and is a must in any DVD collection. Read more
Published on 21 Nov 2007 by Darkstar
That Craziness sounds prophetic to me
That's where it all started. In Australia and nowhere else. And I must say that landscape is impressive. It was science fiction at the time and it no longer is. Read more
Published on 30 July 2007 by Jacques COULARDEAU
More first draft than genuine classic
It's not altogether surprising that Mad Max got such short shrift when it came out Stateside with an unfortunate dubbing job to eliminate the `Strine accents so American... Read more
Published on 29 April 2007 by Trevor Willsmer
Not mad enough
This is an interesting film, which if occasionally a bit wooden, virtually created its own genre overnight, and made Mel Gibson a star. Read more
Published on 15 Oct 2006 by S J Buck
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