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General		Extras
Category	Action	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1985	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	102 minutes	Other Extras	Cast & Crew Biographies Production Notes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	4	Director	George Miller George Ogilvie
Studio Distributor	Warner Brothers	Starring	Mel Gibson Tina Turner
Case	Snapper
RRP	$29.95	Music	Maurice Jarre

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1) French (Dolby Digital 2.0 ) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?
Subtitles	English French Dutch Italian Spanish Portuguese Arabic English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No

    The movie can be roughly divided into three sections which are only loosely tied together; Bartertown, The Children In The Crack, and Final Chase Sequence. The plot and motivations of the characters take a distinct back seat to the action sequences in this movie.

    Mel Gibson is Mad Max, an ex-cop living in a post-apocalyptic world. He arrives in Bartertown, bereft of everything but his skills. Bartertown is run by the tough Aunty Entity (Tina Turner), who desires the Master Blaster (Angelo Rossitto and Paul Larsson) to be eliminated, a job Max takes, but fails to complete. He is cast out into the desert, and eventually arrives at The Crack, where he is mistaken for a saviour by a group of children.

    The world of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome is filled with odd characters, and it is refreshing to be able to recognise so many Australian faces amongst them; Jedediah the flying jalopy pilot (Bruce Spence), The Collector (Frank Thring), and Ironbar (Angry Anderson) are the stand-outs. Nonetheless, I found myself strangely unsatisfied by this third installment in the Mad Max franchise.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer was acceptably sharp and clear, though not particularly so. There is more graininess in this picture than is the norm these days. Considerable amounts of this movie take place under very low lighting conditions, and shadow detail is lacking in these scenes, even though blacks were quite black. This is more a reflection of the film stocks used in the 1980s than any particular deficit in the transfer. No low level noise interfered with the picture.

    The colours were rendered appropriately, with a predominantly brown patina.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of moderate degrees of aliasing, but this was never particularly bad. The opening titles and end credits shimmered somewhat, and I was worried that this would carry through to the movie itself, but this was not the case. I suspect this has as much to do with the relative lack of sharpness of this transfer as anything else. There is some film weave and judder during the titles and the end credits as well, but this is not a problem during the movie itself. Film artefacts were variable in their extent, from quite severely present early on to almost non-existent. Overall, there were a lot of film artefacts, even taking into account the vintage of this transfer. Fortunately, they were never particularly distracting.

Audio

    Dialogue was usually easy to understand, except for a few times during high ambient noise scenes. Here and there, some distortion marred the peaks of the dialogue, but this was never particularly annoying.

    Dialogue seemed in sync throughout the entire movie.

    The music by Maurice Jarre was virtually omnipresent and suitably post-apocalyptic, adding nicely to the overall effect of the movie. At times, it was very percussive, which suited the on-screen action at these times.

    The surround channels were moderately used for music and for special effects, though this tended to be somewhat uneven in its nature. Overall, the soundtrack was not particularly enveloping.

    The .1 channel was used on occasion, but not heavily.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer

Cast & Crew Biographies

Production Notes

    The video quality is acceptable for the age of the movie, but only just.

    The audio quality is acceptable.

    The extras present are limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
22nd March 1999