With the exception of a commentary track, this entire 25 GB disc is devoted toward preserving the feature presentation alone. It’s possibly the most technically perfect, visually stunning high definition presentation we’ve seen from either format yet.
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Shot on a combination of Super35 and HD 24p video, there literally was not a single shot that I wasn’t gaping, jaw to the floor, at the 92” image about seven feet ahead. The film has an extreme dynamic with severely crushed blacks and blistering highlights from a profound exaggeration of contrast. Without access to the master or more intimate knowledge of how the film was made, no reviewer can guarantee fidelity. But, based on the making of on the second disc of this set, the extremes appear to be intentional to the visual design. And that’s the way I’ve graded it. In fact, looking at the glimpse we see in Paramount’s trailer montage that prefaces all their HD releases, it looks exaggerated there too.
There’s nothing like contrast to bring out color and detail. And resolution is so profound it’ll make Aeon Flux look soft. This is usually where I might mention a particular scene to look for as an example. But, you can take your pick. None are skimped on, fully revealing the cinematography’s innate knack for depth and detail. Colors are also as vividly saturated as I have ever seen. Rich hues really come to life and pop out from their deep black surroundings. Yet the nuances of fleshtones are amazingly highlighted with extraordinary detail there as well.
Of course contrast can also bring out grain. But, grain neither looks synthetic in what I presume is a MPEG2 encoding, nor does it look exaggeratingly digitized, crawling rampantly as we’ve seen from some MPEG2 encodings. It seems to fit the expected exaggerated fidelity with aesthetic appeal. Of course that is going to be subjective. But, I didn’t see any clear showing or limitations of compression. Even Paramount’s opening logo looked clean where all the other Paramount BDs I’ve seen so far revealed some posterization and breakup in the blue background. I saw no hint of posterization in color gradients like we’ve seen from some VC1 and MPEG2 encodings. Neither did I see any break up of deep blacks, like what we saw in the AVC encoding of Brother’s Grimm.