New to Blu: March 27 – April 2

Mortal Engines

➢ “The HDR and wide colour grading of the Mortal Engines 4K Blu-ray is gorgeous. As usual with a Universal release, the film has been mastered to 1000 nit peaks, so it’s not the most aggressively punchy image I’ve seen. It combines its peaks, though, with some beautifully deep and rich black levels. What’s more, great care has been taken to apply every nit of the 1000 nit range throughout every frame, so that the HDR image looks truly more dynamic, solid and rich, rather than just generally brighter. This is what HDR should look like.” — Forbes.

➢ “Mortal Engines appears on 4K UHD in its original 2.39:1 screen aspect ratio.  The film is a visual feast of fine detail in 4K, with polychromatic hues that UHD is designed to deliver to the home theatre.  Director Christian Rivers shows the influence of Peter Jackson with camera angles constantly in motion, and this eye candy is served extremely well in 4K.” — Home Theater Forum.

➢ “Choose just about any video assessment superlative and apply it to Mortal Engines. Universal’s 1080p transfer is pretty much perfect. The digitally photographed film makes for a striking Blu-ray, boasting crystal-clear detail and abundant colour … The digitally constructed machines reveal startling complexity in the various moving parts, metal surfaces, and all of the wear and tear and grime associated with them.” — Blu-ray.com.

Dynasties

➢ “BBC’s 2160p/24 presentation delivers, and it can’t be overstated just how much its subtle — and not-so-subtle — refinements create a more enjoyable viewing experience. Dynasties is a native 4K production and, as its opening narration implies, makes every effort to go into greater depth and more detail than ever before. Close-ups and mid-range shots burst with detail and clarity, with some of the strongest textures seen on any home video release.” — Blu-ray.com.

➢ “This is a high-quality Ultra HD presentation that boasts brilliant colour, superlative depth, and an abundance of high level detail. The nature defined color palette is alluring as the deep, vivid, blues, resplendent earth tones, and beautifully rendered sepia, leap from the 1.78:1 framed video. Contrast balance is spot on and blacks are delineated, deep, and rich. Resolution is excellent as the vastness and scope of the recorded elements offers lucid, three-dimensional acuity that looks terrific.” — AVS Forum.

Ralph Breaks the Internet

➢ “The first thing one will obviously notice when comparing the UHD Blu-ray to the 1080p SDR Blu-ray is that the UHD is significantly darker overall while the Blu-ray sometimes appeared a little washed out at times. While the disc has a negligible increase in detail, it has a much more pronounced handle on contrast and colour depth. Shadings of the characters in particular are much more refined.” — Home Theater Forum.

➢ “Ralph’s insecurity virus breaks Ultra HD with a gorgeous, often stunning HEVC H.265 encode, making it a fantastic leap over the Blu-ray and into the worldwide web. Overall definition may not offer a significant difference between the two formats, but the animation enchants viewers with the amount of work that went into [it] … The more appreciable improvement in this 4K transfer is the better brightness and contrast balance.” — High-Def Digest.

➢ “Looks about like you’d expect from a modern animated film in high definition, which is to say spectacular. There’s nothing groundbreaking about it, but it’s a solid 1080p experience full of depth and detail, all of it crisp and well-defined. The colour palette, which is highly varied, offers plenty of deep hues from one environment to the next.” — The Digital Bits.

The Grinch

➢ “Universal provides an upscaled 4K resolution alongside Dolby Vision colour grading, both of which contribute to a picture that is an improvement over the studio’s day-and-date companion release on 1080p Blu-ray. There’s little textural difference to be seen between the two. While the upscaling does tighten, ever so slightly, visual elements like fur, furnishings, and townsfolk, most improvements are marginal at best, welcome, but not vital to the presentation.” — Blu-ray.com.

➢ “The Grinch sleighs into home theaters with an absolutely stunning, reference-quality 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 encode that bursts with a gorgeous parade of colours right from the start … Contrast doesn’t show a significant difference from its HD SDR counterpart, but admittedly, the small jump is enough to give the 4K video a more jovial feel overall.” — High-Def Digest.

➢ “The Grinch appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.39:1 on this Blu-ray disc. The transfer looked terrific. Sharpness was fine across the board. Virtually no softness appeared, as the movie delivered satisfying definition. No signs of jagged edges or moiré effects occurred, and edge haloes were absent.” — DVD Authority.

Suspiria

➢ “The images don’t pop from your screen so much as lay back into it. Which is not to say that details levels aren’t excellent, even in the dim recesses, it’s just that stylistically, the presentation is meant to suck you in, rather than blow you away.” — DVD Talk.

➢ “Those acquainted with Argento’s psychedically infused original may have to temper their expectations here, at least with regard to the palette, which is considerably dowdier than the 1977 version … Still, this shot on film feature offers nice saturation levels and generally excellent detail levels.” — Blu-ray.com.

● Also new is the 30th anniversary edition of the original Pet Sematary.