The Meg 4K UHD (2018)

[barty22]

Could someone please confirm the subtitle options on the UK 4K disc?

Everyone knows what they most likely are, but could someone who has checked the 4k disc please confirm?

[LoSouL]

This looks awesome on UHD. Great detail and killer HDR with a well managed overall look. Basically a syfy channel movie but with an actual budget, a better cast of actors and a smidge more restraint. I can enjoy that myself... fun time.

[DJR662]

Originally Posted by bradnoyes

I saw this in Dolby Cinema so I mostly knew what to expect with this release and it did not disappoint. The colors and clarify here are almost obscene, with plenty of detail and depth to go around. I particularly loved the interiors of the submersibles, where there's lot of cool stuff to look at and the lighting has as much pop as anything I've seen on UHD. The only downside is that the picture is so crisp and seemingly processed at times it loses its filmic quality and strays into made-for-TV territory, and often the movie itself is more than capable of doubling down on that straight-to-video quality. But Jason Statham spends just as much time saving this film from itself as he does saving his friends from the big shark and ultimately he carries the day and the movie is just cheesy enough to avoid falling into the trap of taking itself too seriously (like say, for instance, Skyscraper).

I might have noticed some really faint banding in a few underwater scenes but I was watching this with my wife so I couldn't rewind to confirm I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. But other than those minor instances of banding that may or may not have been there, this is a real knockout. And a word of caution, those of you with super duper peak brightness on your sets might want to watch this one with some shades because it will freaking blind you.

I just watched it and I also thought I could see some really faint banding occur at the beginning during the dark underwater scenes. Just as I thought I could actually see it, I didn't. It was as if the disc corrected itself before it became visible, if that makes any sense. I don't know how to explain it otherwise lol.

It has a very digital look to it but I liked the colors and clarity. I think some people said they thought this disc looked a bit off but I didn't get that feeling. Although one scene did look a bit funny to me. It only lasts a minute or so. It was when the small submarines are being lowered into the water, just before Li Bingbing and Jason Statham are sitting together preparing to enter them. It reminded me a bit of how the first 15 minutes of the King Kong (2005) UHD looks, with that strange, yellowish hot contrast look... Then again, it could be just me though.

The UHD is indeed super bright during those daytime scenes that take place on the water, with lots of shots of the clear sky. Before watching, I turned off all the lights in my living room like I usually do. Normally that would mean an almost pitch dark room, but because my girlfriend put up all the Christmas lights today (and we have a lot ), she wanted to leave at least a couple on while watching the movie. So I had some bias light this time but even then I could easily see just how bright this disc gets.

The thing I like the most about this release though, is the seemingly high level of details during (medium) close-ups. The visible fine details on human faces were so clear and refined, I really loved that! I didn't put in the regular BD to compare how it looked, but having seen the 3D disc very recently, I do think the UHD has so much fine details.

So IMO we have here an enjoyable, mindless popcorn flick with a great UHD presentation. And let me mention the lovely ms Bingbing again. For me one of the reasons I could easily go back to watching this on the regular...

I still think it's a shame it was cut for PG-13. That scene near the end of the movie, with all the people in the water, could have easily been something of a massacre like the one similar in the 2010 Piranha remake... A high level of gore could definitely have made this movie better. Nevertheless it's still stupid fun to watch.

[ewsjr]

Originally Posted by DJR662

I just watched it and I also thought I could see some really faint banding occur at the beginning during the dark underwater scenes. Just as I thought I could actually see it, I didn't. It was as if the disc corrected itself before it became visible, if that makes any sense. I don't know how to explain it otherwise lol.

It has a very digital look to it but I liked the colors and clarity. I think some people said they thought this disc looked a bit off but I didn't get that feeling. Although one scene did look a bit funny to me. It only lasts a minute or so. It was when the small submarines are being lowered into the water, just before Li Bingbing and Jason Statham are sitting together preparing to enter them. It reminded me a bit of how the first 15 minutes of the King Kong (2005) UHD looks, with that strange, yellowish hot contrast look... Then again, it could be just me though.


The UHD is indeed super bright during those daytime scenes that take place on the water, with lots of shots of the clear sky. Before watching, I turned off all the lights in my living room like I usually do. Normally that would mean an almost pitch dark room, but because my girlfriend put up all the Christmas lights today (and we have a lot ), she wanted to leave at least a couple on while watching the movie. So I had some bias light this time but even then I could easily see just how bright this disc gets.

The thing I like the most about this release though, is the seemingly high level of details during (medium) close-ups. The visible fine details on human faces were so clear and refined, I really loved that! I didn't put in the regular BD to compare how it looked, but having seen the 3D disc very recently, I do think the UHD has so much fine details.

So IMO we have here an enjoyable, mindless popcorn flick with a great UHD presentation. And let me mention the lovely ms Bingbing again. For me one of the reasons I could easily go back to watching this on the regular...

I still think it's a shame it was cut for PG-13. That scene near the end of the movie, with all the people in the water, could have easily been something of a massacre like the one similar in the 2010 Piranha remake... A high level of gore could definitely have made this movie better. Nevertheless it's still stupid fun to watch.

Thanks for the review. It put me over the top to buy now that it's hit $20. And you are so right “A high level of gore could definitely have made this movie better.”

[trekky76]

I kinda expected this one to be stupid so I can't be surprised but I didn't expect the level of bad acting performances witnessed. Something is clearly wrong when Jason Statham makes everyone around him look like a bunch of amateurs.
Also, HDR runs way too hot in this one. It's too bright almost to the point of HDR getting lost in the brightness. Also affected some of the dark parts with black levels running tad too bright. Other than that not had any issues with banding or other ones.

[bradnoyes]

Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve seen one actor successfully carry a film to the extent that Statham carries this one.

[levcore]

I really like Cliff Curtis and Rainn Wilson but their roles here aren't great.

[Geoff D]

The Meg (2018). UK Warners UHD. Y'all probably know what I'm gonna say, given all the reports of people's eyes being melted in their sockets by the 'extreme' HDR on this....it didn't bother me in the least. Viewed in a darkened room with no other ambient light other than what the TV is emitting and reflecting off of the room itself, I never once felt that it was particularly overbearing or overblown. Are the exteriors plenty bright? Sure. Enough to get me reaching for the blast shield? Nah.

What's interesting about the HDR pass on this is that while interior lighting is nicely expanded vs the SDR version, extracting more highlight information on walls, faces, clothing etc, the exteriors generally have a more restricted improvement to highlight detail. There's certainly a bit more definition on clouds and sunlight reflecting on water and whatnot but not masses and masses of it, the movie uses so much greenscreen and background replacement that they probably didn't think to bake in a lot of extra range on those shots, so they kinda 'cheated' it by ramping up the brightness instead. Reminds me a lot of an earlier Warners monster movie on UHD: Pacific Rim, and that one also didn't reveal a load of extra highlight information vs the SDR.

Watching in Dolby Vision I can honestly say that I never once felt that I was looking at anything that was obviously clipped or blown out in the highlights, and as 'fake' as the HDR often feels in the bright sea exteriors (the whole image does, really) it still makes it play better than the duller, flatter SDR version. This is one of those HDR grades that sits right on the edge of where the tone mapping should be, tip it just a little bit in the wrong direction and it'll get real ugly real fast, quickly eating up highlight detail because there's not a massive amount of extra detail there to begin with - so if/when it starts getting clipped it can even make it look more blown out than the SDR version. As Kris Deering noted, this also has a very high average picture level (brightness) across the frame that goes into the thousands of nits, not just very high peak levels for tiny speculars, and this can be murder for tone mapping to correctly assess - particularly when the static metadata is wrong, as Kris pointed out!

Black levels are nice and solid when they're out there under the water, rolling off nicely into 'letterbox' black, while darker interiors seem to look a bit thinner but it's not a problem. All that underwater action could've been a nightmare for banding too but it's handled extremely well, as DJR662 said there may have been just the merest hint of it in certain shots near the beginning but after that there are no issues.

Colour is okay, it's not the most amazingly-shot movie you'll ever see and it generally looks much the same palette as the SDR version, although in the brighter shots the HDR retains more colour volume so doesn't look as washed out and has more depth and character to it. I like the deep blues and greens of the underwater shots. One thing I will say re: skin tones is that they're all over the place owing to the huge amount of greenscreen work both on land and sea, faces often have a greeny tinge around the gills while other times will look more yellowy or more orangey as they fight against the lighting being corrupted by all the greenery. Again: not the greatest example of cinematography you'll ever see, it looks like a cheap-ass SyFy movie of the week at times.

This is yet another 2K upscale but, yet again, the upscaled UHD version is able to hold onto the detail at higher frequencies whereas the 1080p Blu-ray softens up earlier, I'm reminded of The Stath's finely knitted shirt when he visits his ex in the hostipal and the ickle Chinese girl struts off to get a soda. The fine detailing of his apparel is less refined in 1080p and detail just seems to 'stop' while it looks clearer and more defined in the 4K HDR version, that's but one example as pretty much the whole show has this effect on clothing, hair, faces and so on.

Don't get me wrongo, the detail holds up very well indeed on the 1080p disc but the UHD goes that bit further, and the encoding around these finer points is better as well and just seems to look so much sharper. Adding to that feeling is a slight reduction in noise in the UHD vs the BD, the latter isn't awash with the stuff but it still seems to have a fraction more of that texture to it while the UHD is cleaner, although the bit in the sub at the start still carries some obvious noise in both versions. As is common to several other de-noised UHDs that I could mention, this in no way imparts a sense of 'waxiness' to the image because digital image capture is more capable of retaining its essence than film does in these situations. Film at its core IS grain while the same cannot be said for digital and sensor noise. Photosites, yes, noise, no.

I quite enjoyed the movie, it's an unholy mess but still has a certain turn your brain off charm to it. I tell you what though, nothing in this flick scared me more than the constant digital touch-ups done to Bingbing Li's face. She literally looks like a digital character in some shots and I'm not being hyperbolic, it's ****ing scary how much they've ladled it on and what doesn't help is that no-one else in the whole movie has the same treatment. They've got lines and wrinkles and facial hair and just a good natural sense of what skin texture should look like, but holy shit Ms Bingbing looks like she's from another planet. The denoising pass on the UHD doesn't help I guess, for while it actually helps to clarify those details on normal human faces it only makes her boat look even more fake and artificial when compared to everyone else. Yikes.

[StrayButler91]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I tell you what though, nothing in this flick scared me more than the constant digital touch-ups done to Bingbing Li's face.

Ima add Ruby Rose's inconsistent accent to the list of things that scared me about the flick

P.S. Glad this one gets the Geoffy Seal of Approval. My copy is still sitting on the shelf, alongside the 3D edition, waiting to be watched.

[bradnoyes]

This is another one of those titles where it's really interesting to read about how vastly different people's experiences are. I didn't have any issues with the UHD being too bright, but I'm watching on an OLED and after reading other posts I figured that anyone with a high-nit set would get blinded during the daylight scenes. Turns out not to be so! I wasn't blinded by the Dolby Cinema presentation either, so certain setups must just have issues with this one. Were folks bothered by the brightness watching in HDR10?

[StingingVelvet]

Could be Dolby maps it down more, could be just inherent differences in how each set handles high nit signals. Also Geoff has said before he's not bothered by bright scenes some complain about, so he's got a higher tolerance. All kinds of factors.

I almost got this with my Christmas gift cards but it was back up to $27 on Amazon. Meh.

[trekky76]

I didn't think it was blinding. There was just little in terms of contrast during outdoor scenes. It does seem like it clips the bright highlights but I also sampled the 1080p blu-ray and it does have the same look so it's not a fault with HDR. I think the issue was with the CGI and green screen.

[ROSS.T.G.]

Ordered today. Looking forward to some nonsense.

[ROSS.T.G.]

HDR on this sucker is wild. I switched for a a second to Cinema Home and felt like I was burning my eyeballs off. Movie was a lot of fun and the Atmos track was great as well.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by ROSS.T.G.

HDR on this sucker is wild. I switched for a a second to Cinema Home and felt like I was burning my eyeballs off.

Imagine it on Geoff's beast that gets twice as bright! I is scurred.

[ROSS.T.G.]

[LoSouL]

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Imagine it on Geoff's beast that gets twice as bright! I is scurred.

Twice as many nits doesn't mean it's twice as bright necessarily, it's just putting more brightness into the speculars that require them. I've literally just been double checking this after andreas posted the caps in the screenshots thread and, again, my face hasn't been burned off.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Twice as many nits doesn't mean it's twice as bright necessarily, it's just putting more brightness into the speculars that require them. I've literally just been double checking this after andreas posted the caps in the screenshots thread and, again, my face hasn't been burned off.

Just a mild suntan?

[Geoff D]

Not even that. I'm just as pasty as ever.