New to Blu: Movies > December 3-9

The week’s stellar release on Blu-ray is the space opera romp Guardians of the Galaxy.

“Guardians of the Galaxy travels across the galaxy with a highly detailed, gorgeous AVC MPEG-4 encode framed in the film’s original theatrical 2.39:1 aspect ratio.

“Much like its 3D (theatrical) presentation, Guardians is a high definition Blu-ray stunner.

“This film boats a wide colour palette, with lots of bright neon colors on everything from environments to starscapes to crazy alien skin tones. All of these are reproduced wonderfully.”

“It should be noted that there is also a 2D/3D 2-disc version available which is worth noting not just because it offers the 3D version of the movie but also because the 3D version reportedly utilises the expanded IMAX footage in its variable aspect ratio presentation, whereas the 2D version does not use any IMAX expansion.”

“The DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 sound mix is a reference quality affair with those 1970s tunes being channeled through the channels with a wonderful degree of effectiveness.

“Dialogue has been well recorded and has been placed in the centre channel.”

Also new are:

• And So It Goes (“things are surprisingly soft quite a bit of the time, even in close-ups”)
• Son of God (“good sharpness and clarity”)
• Legendary (“detail is solid and there aren’t any obvious compression artifacts”)
• Kite (“generally looks fantastic“)
• Falcon Rising
• The Mule
• Anomaly
• Billy Elliot the Musical 
• Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods – Extended Edition
• Hellsing Ultimate – Collection 3
• Ninja Scroll
• One Piece Film: Z
• Senran Kagura: Ninja Flash – Series Collection
• WWE Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
• WWE John Cena: Greatest Rivalries.

The Kubrick Collection is a 10-disc compilation of movies and documentaries while on budget Blu-ray for the first time are Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and This Boy’s Life.