New to Blu: December 20 – January 9

Dunkirk, It and Kingsman: The Golden Circle dominate a slim Blu-ray slate over Christmas and New Year.

“How does the 4K UHD compare to the Blu-ray version?” asked DVD Movie Guide of Dunkirk.

Audio remains identical, as both releases sport the same DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack. Visuals become a different story, as the movie’s 65mm photography takes advantage of 4K’s potential. This means an image with greater definition as well as superior contrast and bolder hues. The Blu-ray looks terrific but the 4K outdoes it.

High-Def Digest says the “reference quality” AVC MPEG4 transfer matches the shifting 1.78:1 and 2.20:1 aspect ratios of the film’s IMAX presentation.

Dunkirk’s IMAX 15/70 and 65mm source material make for a striking home entertainment experience, regardless of format … While it doesn’t offer the same level of fine detail seen in 4K — and this is especially true with the 65mm footage — the Dunkirk Blu-ray is crazy-good for an HD presentation.

Also out on both Blu-ray and 4K-UHD is Kingsman: The Golden Circle (along with a Kingsman 2-Movie Collection on Blu-ray).

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1, Blu-ray.com reports.

Digitally captured with Arri Alexa cameras and finished at a 2K DI, this is, like its cinematic parent, a largely ravishing looking presentation, one with crisp detail levels throughout and some kind of fun and whimsical “bells and whistles” that add visual allure to simple things like dissolves between scenes.

“The film was shot with a specific visual aesthetic in mind and that comes through in both its 1080p and Ultra HD presentations,” AVSForum says.

This isn’t an overtly colourful film, however, there are elements, especially those that take place at Poppy’s Lair, where it shows off the benefits of UHD’s wider colour gamut, where colours look absolutely gorgeous. Resolution gets a boost as well, although the differences between the UHD and 1080p renderings are closer than I would have liked.

Fans of The Lego Ninjago Movie and The Emoji Movie also can choose from Blu-ray or 4K transfers while Captain Underpants is Blu-ray only.

“Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie shines on Blu-ray,” says Blu-ray.com.

The 1080p presentation is lively and visually engaging, offering a broad spectrum of cheerful colour and well defined computer animation detail throughout. Colours are exceptionally vibrant. The film is alive with a barrage of bold colours, lacking nuance by design but delivering an endless supply of cheerful blues, greens, reds, purples, yellows …

As for the differences between the 4K and 1080p transfers of The Emoji Movie:

The bonus with the HDR-enhanced colour palette is a much fuller, firmer, more inherently bold colour palette. There’s significantly more nuance to the yellow emoji “skin” for lack of a better description, with finer shading and variations clearly visible. That holds true for just about every colour in the film. The whole thing is unquestionably more rich and detailed, too.

“Black levels are deep and inky, with almost no signs of any digital artifacting except some mild softness to the film,” AV Nirvana says. “Overall it’s a very competent and nice looking encode for the Blu-ray format.”

For Pearl Jam fans there’s Let’s Play Two, a new concert film culled from their two nights at Wrigley Field in August 2016, and due on December 27 is the Flatliners revival.