I figured I'd start the year off right, by watching this film twice back to back. I just recently bought the two disc collection, of both the original and Black and Chrome edition. While I know George Miller prefers the Black and Chrome, in my personal opinion, I like the color version better. The work that the colorist does is really incredible, and this is one of the few films where orange and black look good on it. In the vast expanses of sky and desert, these two colors pair incredibly well.

I have probably seen this four or five times now, including once in 35mm, which was an incredible experience. It was then, with the brief glimpses of black and white in the thunderstorm that I realized just how beautiful this film is. And it is beautiful, from the costuming to the vehicles to every little piece of minutiae. Each vehicle has countless details where every piece is both recognizable but utterly changed, such as the foot measurer as Furiosa's gas pedal to the bobblehead on Nux's dashboard.

Beyond the design, I realized just how perfectly this film is set up. This is a film in four movements, each lasting precisely 30 minutes. In the first, you have the escape through the storm. The second is the escape through the pass. The third is through the swamp, and the final is the triumphant return to the citadel. This incredible preciseness just awed me. Along with this, the film is incredibly balanced, from the chase and the race as the two major plot points, to Nux's uses of "Witness me" and just everything else.

Thematically, this is an extremely powerful film, and one that feels almost more relevant today, after the #MeToo campaign and the shifting dynamic away from the absolute power of men in certain capacities. Specifically in the role of Furiosa, but also the other women and the Vuvalini(not subtle at all), women rule, and prove their capability to do everything men can do in action movies, and do it better. Beyond the feminist undertones, this also has a pretty potent anti-capitalist bent, as one of the special features on the Blu-ray identifies the leader of Gas Town as the embodiment of the military-industrial complex, something that is hard to ignore now that I know it. I don't think this film is perfect, the variation in bodies of the women is pretty slim, but the inclusion of Furiosa adds depth to this film, in good ways.

I know this film got some amount of hate as it was being produced, and I think it is the most ridiculous thing. I specifically want to focus on the critique of it being Max's movie because he is in the title. Aside from the first Mad Max movie, neither of the sequels are actually about Max. he plays the archetypal wanderer, who comes across a group of people, aids them, and then goes on his way. This is why there is the focus on Furiosa and the other women. It is their story that is being told. Max is only a passerby, albeit a very helpful one. This is also why Max does not ascend to the citadel with them. His time in this story is over, it is now time to move on.

One thing I do briefly want to clear up is the practical effects. Specifically, almost everything is practical effects, which is incredible, especially when you are doing this things in rapidly moving vehicles. But the film does also use special effects and CGI, which I think some people forget about when talking about the movie. That is to say, while practical effects are awesome, I don't think they should be given complete preference over CGI. As someone somewhere once said "The only CGI you see is bad CGI." Case in point, the biggest example of CGI in this film is the canyon. It doesn't exist, this was almost completely computer generated imagery, although the crash was real. The way that it blends in though is incredible.

Overall, this is a film I could watch countless times. Not only does it contain some good politics, but the action sequences are extremely enjoyable to watch. Seeing in its Black and Chrome version is something I would really only recommend to big fans, while it looks really cool, and allows you to focus more on things like the soundtrack, I do favor the color palette of the original film.