Mad Max: Fury Road (Black & Chrome Edition)

When I first saw Mad Max: Fury Road I was absolutely blown away by it!  The action is intense and unrelenting!  It is set in a post-apocalyptic future where overlords control the scarce resources.  One such overlord is Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) who sends out a War Rig driven by Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to search for gasoline.  When she veers off-course, Joe realizes that she has taken his five enslaved wives and so he leads his army of War Boys after her.  Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy), captured by Joe because he is a universal donor, accompanies the army because he is supplying blood to Nux (Nicholas Hoult), one of the War Boys.  After an epic battle in a sand storm, Max eventually joins Furiosa as they try to escape to the green space Furiosa remembers from her childhood.  I love this movie because it is ultimately about redemption and I think that Furiosa is one of the best female characters in film.  The action sequences are epic, made all the more amazing by the fact that most of them employed practical stunts rather than CGI.  Director George Miller has always asserted that he wanted to shoot this movie in black and white and that the black and white version is the best edition of the movie.  Due to its huge commercial success he was able to release the so-called Black & Chrome Edition on DVD and it was screened in theaters very briefly.  This really intrigued me because the colors are so vivid in the theatrical release but I was unable to see the Black & Chrome Edition when it was shown in SLC.  Luckily the Salt Lake Film Society screened it Friday night as part of their Summer Late Nights series and I finally got to see it!  It is awesome!  The black and white images serve to heighten the sense of desolation and they make Immortan Joe and the War Boys really stand out with their pale white skin which makes them even more terrifying.  I also loved the wind storm in black and white because it seems so surreal.  It was quite the experience seeing this on the big screen with a really rowdy crowd (some were dressed as War Boys) and I highly recommend it!  There is one more chance to see it today at noon at the Tower Theatre.  Go here for more information about the Summer Late Nights Series.