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Blu-ray Knight
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I found myself in the same boat as others with a pointlessly delayed Amazon preorder once again, so I grabbed the 4k release this am at Best Buy, and cancelled Amazon pronto. And once again, it felt good. Brick and mortar gratification can be as old-fashioned satisfying as the physical media itself sometimes....
I love this film, waited for its 4k release earnestly, and thoroughly enjoyed viewing it again, as usual. But where to begin....?
This 4k release is a real mixed bag. The good, the bad and the ugly, no doubt. Very much so.
First, a little of the good: 1) better contrast in many scenes helps reduce "glare" effect in the endless smoke and mist 2) warmer, more natural, and more filmic in some few scenes throughout 3) the overblown yellow sunlight sheen has been reigned in for certain scenes 4) some of the grain resolves more naturally in many scenes...
And some bad: 1) noticeably less fine detail and sharpness throughout 2) the weird, almost cloying olive-drab cast over several scenes 3) the foliage actually looks less natural instead of more natural throughout the film, except for a few scenes, which is contrary to what I was expecting 4) the cgi blood looks worse to me in some but not all scenes, against the drab earth-tone color timing 5) the revised contrast actually doesn't benefit many of the scenes as one might expect...and the grain field begins to look inconsistent briefly....I see it swarming here and there on things like wooden planks and docks, the occasional face....
And the ugly: 1) the color regrading is flat-out botched in many places, as from one scene to the next. There is very little consistency in many areas of the film, caused by the color timing revision attempts, and it has nothing to do with the source material because this issue is not nearly so present on the blu ray (if at all). One moment, a specific scene displays one color palette, and seconds later, another angle and display of the exact same scenery contains a completely different, glaringly inconsistent color timing altogether that has been applied. A prime example is when the river boat first arrives at its destination loaded with Rambo and the hired rescue mercs. Two seconds later, as the boat docks and the same scene is viewed from a different angle from up the hill to the left, the boat, the dirt, the trees, the water..is all suddenly a drastically different, even less flattering color. It takes one straight out of the film and is highly distracting, at least to me. It caught me entirely off-guard, and was abrupt enough that it actually made me rewind and watch the scene again. It is also very noticeable at the end of the film where Rambo first arrives at a certain property, and seconds later walks down the long drive toward it, and the color timing of the exact same terrain and foliage is suddenly drastically different. It's like two different people were working on the color regrade from scene to scene, on different days, and not consulting each other, or even referring back to the prior scene. Not the case on the blu ray. This happens in several places throughout the 4k presentation, and strikes me as sloppy/lazy/bad revisionism at its worst 2) Did I mention that noticeably lesser sharpness of the presentation...combined with the blurry filming style of some action scenes and in several instances of the more drab, almost articificially olive and brown color timing in many jungle scenes, it feels like I'm back in time watching my old lackluster dvd of the film instead. It's NOT really more filmic in several such instances, just way more "flat". While the over-hyped blu occasionally looks video-ish, the underhyped 4k can actually look dvd'ish.
In short, half the film looks nicer on the blu ray, the other half looks nicer on the 4k.
In the end, the odd and very inconsistent application of revised color timing
in back-to-back scenes, which I can't "unsee" now, and the lack of detail, work in collusion to pull me out of the 4k's oddball presentation. I occasionally found myself yearning for the uglier but actually less overall flawed and more consistently harsh, but sharply detailed and crisp, 1080p blu ray presentation, which almost fits the over-the-top nature of the film a little better, to me. I feel the 4k is more of a lateral move, that equally or more severely trips and stumbles with its own host of new foibles....
There are no clear winners or losers here, like in the film itself....just more confusion and dead benjamins everywhere......So, depending on how it looks on your particular a/v equipment, pick yer poison. The sound, of course, is killer on both presentations, a bit more bombastic and immersive here and there on the 4k. And no matter what, you'll wind up thoroughly enjoying one of the most brutal and exciting action films ever crafted.
Last edited by DaylightsEnd; 09-04-2019 at 08:58 PM.
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) but the detail is excellent and it's got a nice sprinkling of grain. The UK theatrical Blu being a port of the Lionsgate encode gave me pause but then I remembered: 10-odd years ago Lionsgate's BD encoding wasn't bad at all, nothing like the posterised-to-hell pieces of shit that they've put out on 1080p in recent years.
this is the Godzilla of action movie. That is until I hear John Wicky
I had my AV on -30 with 0 being Ear Bleeding. I know some people hav their AV's louder. But I use amps and -30 is loud any number lower will be too much
Linear Mode
