ROAD WARRIOR DVD $7.50 at WalMart

Checking one of the new bargain DVD dumps at WalMart, I found THE ROAD WARRIOR for $7.50! As a teenager, this was my action-film-to-end-all-action-films, featuring ninety minutes of extended and (for the time) hyper-violent car chases in a post-apocalyptic future when survivors fight over the little fuel left in the world.

Like BLADE RUNNER, THE ROAD WARRIOR's fanciful vision of the future became so imitated and influential that its effect today is somewhat diminished by familiarity. Still, for a twenty-year old film the stunts and directing hold up, and I had a good time revisiting it this evening. It has both pan-and-can and widescreen on the disc, Dolby Digital 5.1, and not much in the way of extras.

Hey, for the price of going to a movie by yourself, you get several people squished under cars, an entire parking lot of bizarre vehicles utterly destroyed, and a pretty good story with a twist at the ending. And your significant other won't mind the carnage, since she gets to look at a young Mel Gibson for an hour-and-a-half.

 

Road Warrior really needs a SE done to it. The dvd isn't bad but it could be a lot better.

 

And check out that 5.1 mix! Very unusual, put it that way. Yet somehow in keeping with the surreal nature of that film, which just never lets up.

ED

 

The Road Warrior is one of my teenage faves, and a movie that doesn't age and gets better(and stranger)with each viewing.

Think I'll head over to Wal Mart today......

 

I haven't seen this movie in widescreen since its original theatrical run, and twenty years later I was impressed with the director's eye. It's actually a very pretty film, although you'd have to watch it a couple times to notice the framing and composition behind the action. The transfer is good, clear and bright without being washed out, judging from my admittedly limited television.

The introductory segment, which narrates over a fast-forward to stock footage to MAD MAX excerpts to the initial, wordless set piece is one of the more accomplished first acts in recent cinema. You're immediately hooked!

 

Agreed. The SE of the original, 'Mad Max' is very good. I never knew that the original U.S. theatrical release of MM dubbed Gibson's voice because the studio execs thought Americans wouldn't be able to decipher his accent Needless to say the DVD uses the original soundtrack.

Ere