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Bumblebee | Blu-ray 4K Review
Bumblebee – 2018
Paramount Pictures 2018
PG13 |1hrs 54mins | Adventure | Sci-Fi
HD | 1080P | Dolby Atmos | Dolby TrueHD 7.1
Unconverted 4K | 2160P | HDR10 | Dolby Vision | Dolby Atmos | Dolby TrueHD7.1
1.78:1 Aspect Ratio
Staring: Hailee Steinfeld, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Cena, Jason Drucker, Pamela Adlon, Stephen Schneider
Directed by: Travis Knight
Ratings & Reviews
Please see here for my comments on reviewing movies.
My ratings are simple being marked out of a maximum of 5+. My reviews are biased towards the technical production aspects of the film with brief comments about the story line. Extras, sorry, that’s just not my ‘bag’.
Not having immersive audio yet, what did the 7.1 soundtrack sound like? Enjoyable, and the 4K HDR10 video? Good.
Entertainment: 4+
Video: 4+
Audio: 4+
Technical Review – 4K UHD HDR10
Bumblebee was shot digitally using Arri Alexa cameras in ARRIRAW 3K4 and finished as a 2K digital intermediate. It is not native 4K and this is apparent in several of the scenes as was evidence of noise in lower lit scenes. The opening Cybertron battle sequences provide a spectacular display of colors, explosions, laser blasts and characters with excellent color saturation, dynamic range and fine detail. Bumblebee and his VW alt-form shows a bold yellow with terrific solidity and saturation. Both were well detailed with layers of dirt, damage and baked on grime. Bumblebees eyes providing an insight into his personality as they changed between deep blue and red hues. Blacks were solid throughout with respectable shadow detail and no compression of whites was evident, providing an extended dynamic range. Details were generally good as was seen in the opening fight scenes on earth in the woods and quarry, and the rusted old boats and cars in the junk yard. Charlie’s (Hailee Steinfeld) home, garage and street also showed good detail but on occasions looked a little soft and provided no tangible feel to the various material textures. Flesh tones were realistic, fairly natural and detailed throughout, showing pores and good hair detail. CGI integration was excellent with no obvious anomalies, with closeups of Bumblebee showing eye catching detail and realism of all his moving parts, especially as he transforms between character and car.
Audio – Dolby TrueHD 7.1
Bumblebee offers a Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 soundtrack that defaults to Dolby TrueHD 7.1 in my system. There is prolific bass throughout, and plenty of surround sound action. Meteors scream down and Helicopters blades rush and roar as they pass overhead. Laser blasts and gun shots are dynamic and powerful. There are plenty of climatic action moments that show good mixing but on occasions might be considered a little overpowering. The accompanying music contains a good number of 80’s tracks that sound a lot better than they did when they were originally released. Dialogue was always clear and detailed with solid front-center imaging and prioritization.
Story Overview
The year is 1987 and Bumblebee finds himself on the run after being sent to earth by Prime. After an initial fight with the Decepticons he seeks refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world after her fathers death, discovers an old VW bug in that same junk yard and soon discovers that this is no ordinary yellow bug. Trying to start the car, Bumblebees signature is detected by the Decepticons, and so starts the battle to protect earth.
Bumblebee is an attempt to return to a more comic book approach to Transformers rather than the mega on screen action sequences seen of late. It has a gentle story, some “tongue in cheek” acting and personalities, but it doesn’t quite get to where I was expecting to. It was a good attempt at to trying to get back to basics, but doesn’t quite make it. Video quality is good, but not stellar, and audio is good with some solid extended bass that gave my subs something to bite on. My 22 year old daughter, a huge fan of Transformers and Sci-Fi, loved the movie, and I am sure we will watch it several more times, but it is not reference video or audio quality. My biggest critisiscm about the movie was its poor lip-sync, that for the first time ever, I had to correct for by using additional audio delay. This is probably a result of the ridiculously huge number of audio tracks available.
