Warner Bros.In 2015 Mad Max: Fury Road roared onto the big screen to the delight of audiences everywhere and surprising everyone that this seemingly ‘clapped-out’ franchise still had gas in the tank.
For those not fortunate enough to have seen Fury Road, the film sees Max (Tom Hardy) team up with Furiosa (Charlize Theorn) as they desperately try to escape the clutches of the bloodthirsty warlord Immortan Joe and his insane posse of War Boys.
If the plot sounds a bit thin on the ground, that’s because it really is, but you shouldn’t let that concern you because what really stands out about Fury Road are the director George Miller’s breathtaking visuals.
Warner Bros.Interestingly now though the studio have released a new black and white edition of the film on Blu-Ray, which may sounds as mad as the titular Max but this was actually Miller’s original vision for the film.
And while you may expect taking colour to rob the film’s stunning vistas of their power it doesn’t, instead rather counter-intuitively stripping the visuals of colour adds a whole new layer to the film.
Joe’s furious paint-huffing war-boys look spectacular rendered in monochrome (rather ironic considering there love of chrome paint) while the movie’s countless petrol powered explosions become oddly beautiful blooms of white.
Warner Bros.Perhaps most interesting though is how robbing the film of colour renders the films brutality. Fury Road was never a film that shied away from blood but seeing it as pure black leaking from a white body is horrifying in all the right ways.
It’s not all good news though, Miller’s frantic editing can be hard to follow at the best of times but in black and white there are times where the cuts become too much becoming very difficult to follow.
Thankfully though Mad Max: Fury Road – Black and Chrome Edition is for the most part a great watch not exactly improving on the original but certainly adding something to it and proving the action blockbusters have artistic value all of their own.
Warner Bros. 
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.