PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Dunkirk (Blu-ray) (2017)
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Dunkirk (Blu-ray) (2017)
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Released 18-Dec-2017
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Details At A Glance
General |
Extras |
Category |
War |
Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Creation: Revisiting the Miracle Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Creation: Dunkerque Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Creation: Expanding the Frame Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Creation: The In-Camera Approach Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Land: Rebuilding the Mole Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Land: The Army On the Beach Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Land: Uniform Approach Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Air: Taking to the Air Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Air: Inside the Cockpit Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Sea: Assembling the Naval Fleet Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Sea: Launching the Moonstone Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Sea: Taking to the Sea Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Sea: Sinking the Ships Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Sea: The Little Ships Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Conclusion: Turning Up the Tension Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Conclusion: The Dunkirk Spirit
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Rating |
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Year Of Production
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2017
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Running Time |
106:38
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RSDL
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Flipper
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Dual Layered Dual Disc Set
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Cast & Crew |
Start Up
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Menu |
Region Coding |
2,4
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Directed By |
Christopher Nolan
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Studio
Distributor |
Roadshow Home Entertainment
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Starring |
Kenneth Branagh Tom Hardy Mark Rylance Harry Styles James D'Arcy Fionn Whitehead Cillian Murphy Aneurin Barnard Jack Lowden Damien Bonnard Barry Keoghan Tom Glynn-Carney
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Case |
Standard Blu-ray |
RPI |
$29.95
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Music |
Hans Zimmer
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Video
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Audio |
Pan & Scan/Full Frame
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None
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English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 5.1 Italian DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio |
2.20:1
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16x9 Enhancement
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Video Format
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1080p
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Original Aspect Ratio |
2.20:1
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Miscellaneous |
Jacket Pictures
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No
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Subtitles |
English Italian Spanish Danish Finnish Norwegian Swedish
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Smoking
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No
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Annoying Product Placement
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No
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Action In or After Credits |
No
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NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.
Plot Synopsis
The latest big-budget magnum opus from director Christopher Nolan, 2017’s Dunkirk is one of the purest cinematic experiences of the year; a war epic built around visual storytelling backed by minimal dialogue. In a number of ways, Dunkirk is a masterpiece - it looks and sounds great, flaunting top-notch production values across the board, and it is a stunner to behold projected in 70mm. Backed by a generous $100 million budget, Nolan puts his audience into the thick of this pivotal World War II tale, covering land, air and sea to convey the breadth of the miraculous true-life event. However, it’s also almost entirely devoid of emotional attachment, finding Nolan ostensibly unwilling to even try to carve out fully-realised characters or create any arcs, as he’s too focused on the you-are-there experience of the Dunkirk evacuation. With this in mind, the extent of the film’s effectiveness will remain in the eyes of the beholder, but I was left wishing I liked the movie more than I did.
The Dunkirk evacuation - also known as “The Miracle of Dunkirk” - occurred in the summer of 1940, during the early days of WWII. German forces managed to successfully advance in their planned takeover of Europe, in the process pinning 400,000 Allied troops against the English Channel, leaving them stranded due to complicated geographic accessibility and a shortage of available warships. With Hitler’s armies closing in, Winston Churchill orders recreational boat captains to mobilise for the rescue while the soldiers at Dunkirk hold out as best they can. Among the soldiers on the beach, Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) sticks with Alex (Harry Styles) and Gibson (Aneurin Barnard) as they attempt to escape on a vessel, while an overwhelmed Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) tries to coordinate the mayhem as dive bombers swoop the area. Across the channel, boat captain Dawson (Mark Rylance) answers the call to assist in the Dunkirk rescue, and encounters a shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy) along the way. Up in the air, Royal Air Force fighter pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy) puts his life in the line as he winds through the air with limited fuel to take out as many German bombers as possible.
Written solely by Nolan himself, Dunkirk is experimental in its narrative structure, opting for a nonlinear approach in order to create a weighty payoff when all plot threads coalesce for the climax. This nonlinear technique was seemingly also employed because the three stories occur across different periods of time - as informed by brief captions, the land-based story happens over a week, the sea-based story is a day, and events in the air happen within an hour. To be sure, the use of different perspectives is effective to convey a grander understanding of the evacuation, while also serving to keep the film feeling fresh. However, the chronology-bending antics can be confusing, and it remains questionable whether the project even needed this type of structure. Indeed, it’s jarring to leap from midday to pitch-black night and then back to daylight, and it appears that we eventually start seeing the same action from another viewpoint, but it can be hard to tell if it’s supposed to be a replay or a different event entirely. The palpable intent is to create the sort of confusion that soldiers feel in war, but confusion is sufficiently built by not seeing the actions of the Germans. Perhaps Dunkirk might have worked better if each segment played out individually, before cumulating for the big finish.
In a way, Dunkirk’s lack of emotion feels like a conscious effort on Nolan’s part to challenge his critics after Interstellar, which was drenched in forced sentiment that the helmer ostensibly struggled with. Aside from a few moments in Dawson’s story and a touching closing scene, there’s very little in the way of humanity here, and there’s no central character to latch onto. Characters are thinly-defined, with no backstories or personalities - hell, most aren’t even given names! Again, you can understand that Nolan was aiming for an experience with minimal dialogue, but you need something more in a movie to make it feel more dramatically cohesive. With the cast mostly comprised of unknown performers, the film basically belongs to the recognisable veterans. Branagh is particularly exceptional, not to mention superbly naturalistic as a smart, dedicated officer, while Rylance again shows his terrific acting chops with an understated but flawlessly essayed portrayal of a kind-hearted civilian trying to do his bit. Poor Hardy, meanwhile, is stuck wearing a mask for most of his screen-time, making him tough to understand and severely limiting his expressivity. James D’Arcy (TV's Agent Carter) is also on hand as a colonel who serves Commander Bolton, and he brings sufficient gravitas to the role. As for the casting of One Direction pop singer Harry Styles? The low-ranking soldiers are so generic and undefined that I couldn’t even figure out where he was, and the casting decision does seem like a cheap way to boost ticket sales for the tween audience.
Nolan’s dedication to shooting on celluloid and using practical effects remains a genuine breath of fresh air in today’s digital effects-laden blockbuster climate, and his style is a perfect fit for a war movie of this scope and scale. One would be hard-pressed to pick out any shots containing obvious CGI, as Nolan wisely elected to use real ships, real planes and real locations as much as possible, creating an astonishingly tangible aesthetic that’s impossible to fault. Furthermore, to ensure the best possible image quality, director of photography Hoyte Van Hoytema (Spectre, Interstellar) lensed Dunkirk using a combination of 65mm and 70mm film stock, and the resultant dimensionality and crispness would be impossible to achieve digitally. There are many taut, suspenseful set-pieces throughout the film which get under the skin, including frenzied dogfights in the air and warships being sunk, showing the superlative level of cinematic craftsmanship that Nolan is capable of. It’s topped off by a powerful, dynamic sound design and a relentless score courtesy of Hans Zimmer which does effectively support the imagery and drive the pace, but can also be too intrusive at times.
To Nolan’s credit, there are some genuinely unnerving sequences as well - such as a moment depicting soldiers getting crushed by a drifting ship, and a set-piece in which many poor souls are trapped in the belly of a sinking ship, helplessly drowning in the terrifying darkness. However, one can only dream of what Dunkirk might have been with the freedom of an R-rating. The film strictly keeps within the boundaries of a PG-13 rating (M in Australia, and a pathetic 12A in the UK), undeniably restricting the combat sequences, making it feel unnaturally sterile when the brutality of war should not be sanitised. The lack of blood instantly takes you out of the film, reminding you this is a commercial product. Early into the movie, for instance, dive bombers attack Dunkirk beach and a soldier is directly hit with a bomb, but his body isn’t blown apart and there’s no blood or viscera. Plus, whenever said bombers unload their cannons which are capable of tearing soldiers to pieces, there isn’t a drop of blood to be seen. The bloodless attacks are admittedly scarce, but it’s impossible to convey the full horror of war within the constraints of a PG-13 rating, especially in the shadow of full-blooded WWII films like Saving Private Ryan, Hacksaw Ridge and 2014’s Fury.
Mercifully, this is one of Nolan’s shortest motion pictures, clocking in at a mere 106 minutes including credits. It’s certainly a refreshing change after the indefensibly plodding Interstellar and the bloated Dark Knight Rises. Oddly, however, the scope of the movie suddenly feels a tad restricted as it approaches the finish line. It still looks marvellous, of course, but the major turning point in the evacuation is short-changed; only a dozen or so civilian skiffs are glimpsed arriving to evacuate troops, rather than the hundreds which would be required for such a large-scale operation. The actual evacuation actually continued for eight days, but in the film, it abruptly ends not long after the boats are seen arriving - there aren’t even captions to fill in the blanks. As a result, it’s impossible to get the feeling that over 300,000 troops were evacuated, which is bizarre for an otherwise expensive, large-scale film. Also pertinent is that it’s hard to get any sense that thousands of German soldiers surround the beach and are closing in whilst Allied forces pray for a miracle, which could have been visually conveyed in some of the many sweeping aerial shots of the beach.
Ultimately, Dunkirk feels like the latter half of a great war movie - it lacks in context, character and even story. It’s the equivalent of starting a Titanic movie right as the ship begins to sink. Many are already claiming Dunkirk to be the best war movie of all time, which is an absurd statement. Its technical accomplishments are not to be underestimated, and the movie looks stunning in 70mm, but its shortcomings in terms of character and storytelling are hard to overlook. Still, Nolan does build to a touching footnote in which Winston Churchill’s famous address is read aloud by one of the soldiers, though this moment does serve to highlight how emotionally bereft the rest of the film truly is. Shortcomings aside, Dunkirk is a worthwhile war movie that absolutely demands to be witnessed on the biggest possible screen.
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Transfer Quality
Video
Roadshow/Warner Bros. titles are notoriously bitrate-starved on Blu-ray, resulting in compression issues and inherent softness, but thankfully there are no such problems with Dunkirk's Blu-ray debut. With all the special features appearing on Disc 2 of this set, Nolan's latest magnum opus is given a disc to itself, to accommodate the 107-minute movie while maintaining an above-average bitrate which frequently sits around the 35 Mbps mark. (Can we please make this a regular thing, Roadshow/WB?) Even though there is still some 15GB of leftover space on this dual-layered BD-50, the movie still takes up a rather beefy 33.5GB, which is more than sufficient to create a striking Blu-ray presentation, especially given the movie's comparatively scant length. Shot entirely with large-format film stock - 65mm and IMAX 15/70 - and completed photochemically, Dunkirk is ideal demo material for the format and left me hugely impressed, which is no small feat with an available 4K alternative. The AVC-encoded 1080p Blu-ray presentation also thankfully retains the correct theatrical framing: 2.20:1 for the non-IMAX material, and 1.78:1 for the IMAX shots (comprising about 75% of the movie).
From a detail and sharpness standpoint, this Blu-ray really soars. Textures are strikingly brought out on skin, clothing, props, landscapes and sets, never faltering no matter the lighting conditions. Grain is minimal owing to the large-format film stock (grain is most noticeable during the non-IMAX shots), and luckily the transfer never looks too smooth or smeary; it's stable all the way through. The presentation is welcomely organic to boot, with no signs of unsightly digital tampering to sully the image. Even if you're sitting close to the television, the transfer still looks magnificent, serving as a reminder of how good 1080p Blu-ray can still look. Sharpness is above-average, with the transfer sporting phenomenal object delineation both in daylight and in darkness. In addition, the Blu-ray's palette looks true to the colours I recall seeing at the cinema; it's deliberately muted, with plenty of cloud cover throughout, never looking bright or highly saturated. Skin tones and military uniforms are lifelike and accurate, while contrast never disappoints, allowing for agreeable image depth. The strengths of this Blu-ray really show the benefits of shooting on celluloid as opposed to digital - it's hard to imagine a digital production looking as strong, vibrant or as deep as this.
This 1080p presentation of Dunkirk may lack the textural perfection and deeper colours of the 4K Ultra HD edition, and I did notice a bit of banding, but that's about the least positive thing you can say about this Blu-ray. At least there are no severe compression artefacts like macroblocking or aliasing; just the minor banding. Some may actually prefer the look of this standard Blu-ray over its 4K counterpart, especially since the 1080p transfer is a bit brighter, but this is all in the eyes of the beholder. For those who are not 4K-compatible, this is still a beautifully detailed, razor-sharp and faithful high definition presentation and one of the best Blu-ray transfers in recent memory.
Subtitles are available in a variety of languages. The English track is free of problems.
Video Ratings Summary
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Audio
To the complete horror of audiophiles worldwide, Dunkirk is only hitting home media with a lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 track (the 4K Blu-ray is no different), rather than an Atmos mix or a 7.1 track. But this has long been a Christopher Nolan tradition, and he was reportedly in charge of authoring the movie for home video, meaning that this 5.1 track is completely director-approved and is therefore preferable over a studio-mandated remix. From the opening frames of the movie, the sound mix is stunning. Prioritisation is flawless, subwoofer activity will make the walls of your home cinema shake, and surround activity and panning is simply unreal. When planes fly across the screen or overhead, you could swear that there are actually planes flying around you, thanks to the use of panning as well as roaring of the engines. Early into the movie, when waves crash up against the Mole, the resulting sounds are deafening. During scenes set inside the cockpits of the Spitfires, the soundscape is immersive, with engine roars as well as the sound of wind, the rattling of the instruments, and the propeller noises. It really helps to amplify the sense of immediacy that Nolan was aiming for.
Zimmer's distinctive, impactful score has plenty of presence, filling the surround channels and making effective use of the subwoofer. Ambience, too, is omnipresent and effective - you can hear the sounds of wind on the beach, and of waves on the ocean. There is not a single moment when the sound mix feels hollow or underwhelming. Furthermore, every gunshot and bullet hit has serious impact, and you could swear bullets are flying around you - see the opening of the movie, for instance. The screams of the Stuka dive bombers are deafening, and bomb explosion sounds will make your walls rumble. And since the audio is lossless, there is not a single imperfection to be found within the mix; no muffling, drop-outs, pops or clicks, nor are there any sync issues. Nolan is notorious for mixing dialogue too low compared to the rest of the movie (see Interstellar), but there are no problems with dialogue throughout Dunkirk. Sure, the dialogue may be a bit soft compared to the explosions and gunshots, but that's true to life. What matters is that the dialogue is easy to comprehend. You can even quite easily make out Michael Caine's voice during his brief vocal cameo over the radio of the Spitfires.
"Only" including a 5.1 mix might automatically dissuade certain audiophiles from buying purely out of principal, but this is one of the best audio tracks of the year, if not the best. It really put my surround sound system to work, and I doubt it'll disappoint anybody. This is definitely not one to watch late at night whilst people are trying to sleep.
There are a few other audio options on the disc for those interested, but I was solely concerned with the primary English option for the purposes of this review.
Audio Ratings Summary
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Subwoofer | |
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Extras
All of the special features are found over on Disc 2.
Disc 2:
On this disc is an in-depth documentary examining the making of Dunkirk, which is broken up into categories and featurettes. You can watch the documentary in its various segments, or via a "Play All" function - the total runtime is a staggering 109:46. It covers a hell of a lot of ground and is full of insightful on-set footage, though I would have liked to have seen some additional extras on the disc like deleted scenes and trailers. Still, this is all worthwhile.
Creation (HD; 22:19 total)
Four featurettes are available under this submenu, which you can either watch individually or via a "Play All" function.
- Revisiting the Miracle (7:49) - Cast, crew, historians and veterans discuss the Dunkirk evacuation and its significance. Nolan also talks about wanting to tell this story, and his approach to it.
- Dunkerque (5:00) - Location scouting and recreating Dunkirk is covered, with locals positively responding to the production. One of the historians mentions that he simply couldn't believe the realism when stepping onto the set. There is a fair bit of on-set footage here which underscores the incredible reliance on practical effects.
- Expanding the Frame (3:36) - A welcome behind-the-scenes look at the use of large-format cameras to create the best possible image. The practicality of using IMAX cameras, and the experience of the camera crew is also touched upon.
- The In-Camera Approach (5:52) - The reliance on practical effects. Nolan prefers to do as much as possible in-camera for the most convincing illusion, and this featurette discusses the practical effects and takes a look at how various things were achieved.
Land (HD; 16:39 total)
A further three featurettes are available here.
- Rebuilding the Mole (5:59) - The real Mole has, of course, deteriorated over the last seven decades, and therefore the film crew had to recreate it which was no small task. The crew rebuilt the Mole on top of its original foundations using the original blueprints, and had to continue maintenance throughout the shoot as the set would continually fall apart.
- The Army On the Beach (5:18) - Thousands of extras were employed for shooting, and Nolan explains that they wanted to remain true to life and recruit young men. Also, to create the illusion of more people, fences of cardboard cutouts were placed in the background.
- Uniform Approach (5:21) - The wardrobe and costume design is covered here. Brand new military uniforms were created and aged, and crew members were even given costumes to wear, to disguise themselves during 360 degree shots.
Air (HD; 18:30 total)
Two more featurettes, with the focus finally being taken away from the beach to examine the sequences in the air.
- Taking to the Air (12:31) - Nolan's vision for the air-based sequences was very ambitious, and required a lot of effort on the part of the crew. Old planes had to be tracked down, while other planes were modified to resemble WWII fighter. In addition, whereas most productions would use digital cameras, Nolan insisted on using IMAX rigs for the best possible image quality, which created more headaches. The logistics of shooting the aerial stunts is covered here, and there's plenty of insightful behind-the-scenes footage.
- Inside the Cockpit (5:59) - Rather than using green-screen for the cockpit shots, the principal actors were actually put into a plane cockpit and taken into the air. A gimbal was also designed for more complex shots that could not be achieved whilst actually in the air.
Sea (HD; 36:57 total)
Five featurettes here.
- Assembling the Naval Fleet (3:50) - A brief segment about the challenges involved in sourcing the ships used in the movie. No historical warships were made available to the production, so existing ships were modified.
- Launching the Moonstone (5:55) - The Moonstone - owned by Rylance's character in the movie - was an existing vintage boat that was sourced for the production and modified. Astonishingly, all scenes were actually shot aboard the boat in claustrophobic conditions on the real sea with minimal crew, to heighten the sense of realism. And like the planes, there was thankfully no green-screen photography.
- Taking to the Sea (13:43) - The shoot in the English Channel is covered here. As explained by the crew, sea-based shoots are notoriously difficult due to the unpredictability of the weather. The complex machinations revealed through anecdotes and behind-the-scenes footage here is genuinely fascinating - and the featurette even covers the sinking of an IMAX camera attached to a dummy Spitfire.
- Sinking the Ships (7:29) - Sinking the various ships on-camera posed obvious challenges, and that's the subject of this featurette. Water tanks were used for a few sequences when absolutely necessary (particularly for interiors during sinking scenes).
- The Little Ships (5:57) - And finally, the little civilian skiffs used in the evacuation are covered. The producers reached out to The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships, and wound up using a number of boats that actually crossed the English channel to evacuate troops in 1940. It's a great touch which heightens the sense of authenticity once more.
Conclusion (HD; 15:19 total)
A final two featurettes to round out the documentary.
- Turning Up the Tension (7:23) - Turning the focus to the editing of Dunkirk, this featurette primarily concentrates on the relentless score by Hans Zimmer and how the editing had to match up. Old-school editing machines with actual strips of film are shown (requiring scissors and tape), which is extraordinary in an age of digital tech. But that's Nolan for you! An interesting featurette, though it could have been longer.
- The Dunkirk Spirit (7:55) - Wrapping up the extras, the cast and crew reflect on the experience of making the movie, and on the event itself.
R4 vs R1
NOTE: To view
non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually
also NTSC compatible.
In terms of special features, all editions worldwide are identical. Buy local.
Summary
It certainly has its shortcomings, but Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk is nevertheless an extraordinary achievement of contemporary moviemaking, and at 107 minutes it's one hell of an experience that holds on and doesn't let go. It demands to be seen on the biggest possible screen.
The Blu-ray from Roadshow doesn't leave much to be desired. A two-disc set, the technical presentation is thoroughly marvellous, while the second disc contains a satisfying selection of featurettes which takes an insightful look into the making of this blockbuster. This is one for the Blu-ray shelf. Highly recommended.
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Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall | |
© Callum Knox (I studied biology)
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Review Equipment |
DVD | LG UP970 4K UHD HDR Blu-ray Player, using HDMI output |
Display | LG OLED65E6T.
This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 2160p.
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Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver.
This audio decoder/receiver has not been calibrated.
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Amplification | Samsung Series 7 HT-J7750W |
Speakers | Samsung Tall Boy speakers, 7.1 set-up |
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