When I told my wife that I would soon be watching Mad Max: Fury Road, the Black & Chrome Edition (now on Blu-ray), her response was, “What’s the point?”
It’s a valid question, because other than demand by fan boys who reacted to director George Miller’s claim that a black-and-white version was even better than the theatrical, full-color cut, there isn’t much reason for this Black & Chrome edition to exists.
The Blu-ray set, which comes with both the regular version and the black-and-white version, includes a brief introduction by George Miller explaining why it exists; basically, he just thinks it looks better. But does it?
Not really.
Mad Max: Fury Road doesn’t look bad in black-and-white. Some scenes, especially interior shots, are harder to make out, but in some of the external sequences, the contrast really highlights the fine detail of the scenery. Basically, without color, your eyes have to focus on different things, and so they focus on different things.
Fury Road is an utter blast of a movie that seems to get better with every passing viewing, but the black-and-white filters don’t add much to the viewing experience. It’s a novelty, nothing more, and given how colorful and beautiful the original theatrical version is, it’s frankly a shame that Miller thinks losing that aspect of the film makes it better.
If you’re excited for the Black & Chrome version, then by all means, spend your hard-earned cash on the same movie you already own; you’ll probably love it and come up with an excuse as to how the movie looks even better. But for the rest of us, if you acknowledge that there’s a reason why movies abandoned black-and-white over 50 years ago, this new version is nothing more than an interesting experiment.
from FilmJabber Movie Blog http://ift.tt/2h3xvyg
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