If you’d hoped that having Lost’s Carlton Cuse writing the screenplay would result in San Andreas being a more cerebral form of disaster movie, you should realise he was also an executive producer on Nash Bridges, so he is not averse to more straightforward entertainment. Indeed, it’s almost like he watched every Roland Emmerich movies – from 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow to Independence Day and Godzilla – and then used that as his template, but cut out anything too intelligent.

There is little to surprise here, although it certainly delivers on the large sale mayhem.

Dwayne Johnson is Los Angeles helicopter rescue pilot Ray, who’s dealing with the collapse of his marriage following the death of one of his children. However, he’s soon going to have more than that to worry about (actually, that’s not true as that’s all he cares about), when earthquakes start devastating California, starting at the Hoover Dam and then working its way up to San Francisco. And wouldn’t you know it, Ray’s daughter is in San Francisco, and so he sets off to rescue her, dodging city destroying shaking, tsunamis and general building destroying catastrophe along the way, as the San Andreas fault splits apart, resulting in the biggest quakes ever known. [Read more…]

After stagnating in Development Hell for donkey’s years, ‘Mad’ Max Rockatansky finally hit the road again for a fourth outing. Sticking Tom Hardy in the driver’s seat vacated by Mel Gibson, George Miller’s psychotic road trip got thumbs-up from everyone and their mum. And so it should – Mad Max: Fury Road is bold, brash and insanely stylish and the anarchic franchise has undoubtedly returned with a bang.

Moving along with breakneck pace, boasting an all-star cast and a simple, effective premise, it turns out that it was indeed a lovely day to catch up with the Road Warrior. However, it’s still only the third best in the series. To put it simply, Fury Road is ace but it falls short of brilliance. While there’s much to love, it’s actually little more than a by-the-numbers slice of fun – albeit a very well-crafted slice.

Yet again, the action picks up a good while after the world has gone to shit. Max is minding his own business in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, but gets picked up by the War Boys (an army led by batshit crazy cult leader, Immortan Joe) and held captive as a walking blood bag for sickly soldier Nux (Nicholas Hoult). With Joe having established a citadel in the desert where he begrudgingly rations out water to his followers, his little operation goes awry when one of his generals, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), takes an armoured truck and jailbreaks five of Joe’s wives that he uses for breeding. With the War Boys in pursuit, it’s soon abundantly clear that they’re going to need a little help from none other than that Rockatansky chap.

Miller’s trek down Fury Road does most things right. Its plot is as straightforward as they get, serving as a basic framework from which to hang a metric ton of bombastic anarchy, while the stellar cast all take to their roles with the grit, determination and respect that the franchise deserves. The production design is impeccable and the effects are flawless, while the dialogue finds that perfect balance between ludicrousness and poetry that such cinematic lunacy requires.

The problem is that it’s just a bit too simplistic in comparison to what’s come before. That wouldn’t be too much of an issue alone, but coupled with Max being reduced to second string as Furiosa takes the lead, it actually feels more like a spin-off for Charlize Theron’s warrior that a new Mad Max movie. For that alone, it’s enough to knock a star off the rating.

Seeing as Fury Road is the first Mad Max film in 30 years, it would have been better to have one where Max is the main protagonist. With a simplistic departure from the more thorough, comprehensive narratives of the first three, it allows you to detach your brain and just enjoy the ride, but it just feels a little smaller than Max deserves – which is odd considering the budget and scale.

Still, while it smacks a little of a film mildly giving the finger to its predecessors from time to time, it remains that Fury Road is fantastic fun bolstered by superb performances from Theron – who handles her strong female lead with ease – and the underutilised Hardy – who makes Max his own.

Where the film really shines though is in its slick visuals. The oversaturated, lush orange and blue palette and the flawless design bring the post-apocalyptic Outback to brash, snarling life, and it’s shown off in stunning fashion with the high-def transfer. Reproducing every garish shade and handling the fast camerawork without a trace of artifacting or blurring, it’s truly a title to show off a quality AV set-up.

Similarly, the audio sticks you right in the thick of it with Max and the gang. Every explosion, every roar of an engine and every guitar strum from the weirdest baddie of the series are rendered with crystalline efficiency. It makes for a truly remarkable treat for your peepers and lugholes.

Elsewhere, the disc, being a Warner title, is rammed with a host of extras including deleted scenes and a ton of featurettes that delve into the characters and the production. Sadly, the hinted-at black and white version of the movie is absent but it’s not enough to stop this from being an essential purchase for any fan of the series.

In all, Max’s return was big, bold, bombastic silliness, expertly crafted by Miller. The issue remains that, despite its inherent craziness, it’s a just a tad safe with its downplayed plot that sidelines the titular hero. As a result, we end up missing out on the post-apocalyptic Aussie epic it could have been. Still, it’s not enough to make Fury Road anything less than an unforgettable, adrenaline fuelled, high octane trip back to the road warrior’s stomping ground.

Overall Verdict: Fury Road is a hyperactive, oversaturated slice of relentless action that falls slightly short of real brilliance, but luckily nowhere near enough to stop it from being a fantastic fun-filled trip back to Max’s savage Outback.

Reviewer: Jordan Brown

Every year the internet gets excited after someone photoshops an image from Back To The Future to suggest we’ve finally reached the date that Marty, Doc Brown and Jennifer go to when they travel into the future in Back To The Future Part II. However, it’s always been a hoax – until now, that is!

Yep, October 21st, 2015 is the date that fans have been waiting for, even if we’ve had to come to accept that flying cars, hover boards, self-lacing shoes and food rehydrators aren’t the commonplace items the movie suggested they would be.

It’s not too surprising then that a DVD and Blu-ray re-release has been put together to celebrate both 30 years since the original movie and the fact we’ve very nearly reached the future (as well as 60 years since the 1955 parts of the trilogy).

I would tell you about the movies, but quite frankly if you’ve never seen the Back To The Future films, you have no right being on a film website. Just go and watch them now, and feel like a complete idiot that it’s taken you this long to see them, as they are great fun. I’ve written elsewhere about how the original movie helped make me a film lover, to the point I watched it so much as a kid that I completely wore out the VHS tape and had to buy a new one. It’s still one of my all-time favourites.

The added interest in this release comes from the new bonus disc, which offers over two hours of extra special features, all of which are pretty good. There’s the 45-minute ‘Looking Back To The Future’, which pieces together original 80s and newer interviews to give a great overview of the making of the first movie, from the original idea to the creation of the time-travelling DeLorean. Although much of the information has been seen in other documentaries, there’s still some interesting new info, particularly about the mechanics of making the film, from how they created the flame trails to the way they intricately turned 1955 Hill Valley into 1985 Hill Valley.

Also well worth a look for fans is the featurette, ‘OUTATIME: Restoring the DeLorean’, which shows how the main ‘hero’ DeLorean from the trilogy was allowed to slowly decay, with fans stealing bits of it, animals making their home inside and the whole thing generally falling to bits. As a result, in 2012 it was completely restored by a group of BTTF fans, and this featurette takes an interesting look at that.

You may not have even known there was a Back To The Future animated series, but in 1991 there was. It continued the story of Marty and Doc Brown, along with the Doc’s kids, Jules and Verne. There are two episodes included in this new release, which also feature live-action semi-educational sequences with Christopher Lloyd. To be honest it’s not the greatest cartoon ever made, but it’s a fun addition for fans who’d like to get a taste of this spin-off.

However, the thing that many will be most interesting to many is a brand new short film featuring Lloyd as Doc Brown. After you get over the fact that 30 years on Lloyd looks a fair amount older than the aged Doc Brown suggested he would in the movies, it’s certainly nice to have him back. To be honest it’s not the greatest of shorts, but it does offer the makers the opportunity to tell us why our version of 2015 is so different to the one seen in Back To The Future Part II. Apparently it’s the Doc’s fault (although he does have a good reason)! It would have been nice if they could have tried something a little more ambitious, but it’s still great to see the Doc back again.

Also pretty entertaining are a couple of commercials for things we see in 2015 Hill Valley. There’s a teaser trailer for Jaws 19, which also gives us a taste for what happened in Jaws five to 18. The hover board also gets an advert, to let us know how cool levitation is.

Beyond the Bonus Disc, it’s essentially the same as the earlier Blu-ray release, which included a fair amount of special features and a pretty good HD transfer of the movies.

Overall Verdict: Although it’s a toss-up whether you need the new features if you already own the Back To The Future trilogy on Blu-ray, but if you don’t you really ought to buy it.

Special Features:
Bonus Disc:
‘Doc Brown Saves the World!’ Short Film
OUTATIME: Restoring the DeLorean: An inside look at the 2012 restoration of the most iconic car in film history.
‘Looking Back to the Future’ Documentary
Back to the Future: The Animated Series Episodes
2015 Commercials

From Earlier Releases:
Tales from the Future 6-Part Documentary
The Physics of Back to the Future
Deleted Scenes
Michael J. Fox Q&A
Eight Archival Featurettes
Behind the Scenes Footage
Music Videos
Audio Commentaries
Back to the Future: The Ride

Reviewer: Tim Isaac