7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A woman named Sam finds herself trapped in New York City during the early stages of an invasion by alien creatures with ultra-sensitive hearing.
Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou, Eliane UmuhireHorror | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: HEVC / H.265
Video resolution: 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
German: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Polish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Thai: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Espana, Latinamerica
English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Cantonese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified), Norwegian, Polish, Slovak, Swedish, Thai, Turkish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy
4K Ultra HD
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 0.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
In just two films, A Quiet Place and its sequel have established the franchise as one of the best in Hollywood, taking a simple gimmick -- aliens invaders who hunt on sound -- and crafting two of the most suspenseful, purposeful, technically excellent, and very human films of the past few decades. Paramount has unsurprisingly, and rightly, released this third film, A Quiet Place: Day One, a prequel of sorts that take viewers back to the beginning of the alien invasion and follows the story from the perspective of a cancer patient struggling to survive in the midst of the the chaos and unknown. The film, in a way, takes the approach of Fear the Walking Dead by taking an established genre icon and offering a new look at story origins from a different perspective. Unlike Fear, however, this one works, and it works wonderfully, in large part because the material is so rich and has not yet worn out its welcome, but also because it’s a legitimately good story with compelling characters, slick filmmaking, and tangible terror. A Quiet Place has not at all quietly become the best alien invasion and disaster franchise in recent years and easily one of the best of its kind, ever.
The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc.
Paramount's 2160p/Dolby Vision UHD release of A Quiet Place: Day One looks marvelous. The image is really only degrees sharper than the
Blu-ray, offering crisper, cleaner definition to clothes and faces and small spaces (like a market in the 8-minute mark). Yet the clarity gains are most
welcome, especially in the ashen, gray, rubble-infused locales, because even giving the film just a little more razor-sharpness makes the terrain and the
terror all the more immediate and tangible. The extra bumps are well worth it. The Dolby Vision color grading delivers a more noticeable difference
offering more exacting colors, a deeper spectrum, and fuller color saturation. Sam's mustard-colored sweater, for example, looks fantastic early on
while it is still cleaner and even as it accumulates dirt and debris, the color precision is all the more satisfying for its excellent portrayal of real
weathering. Skin tones look all the more realistic, the white cat fur is more brilliant, and the multitude of low light shots yield superior black levels
compared to the Blu-ray, where blacks at times look slightly elevated. Noise is handled a bit better here to the point that it is barely noticeable, and the
minor banding issues are not nearly as pronounced here as they are on the Blu-ray, either. This is a super UHD release from Paramount.
Dolby Atmos is the encode of choice for A Quiet Place: Day One, and as expected the film sounds brilliant. It's really a highlight reel of Dolby Atmos audio excellence. The track presents some excellent bass throughout, offering great depth and tight response. It's very powerful but never overwhelmingly so. The track also features great directional effects, such as police and military vehicles rushing from side to side in one early shot, while monsters scamper and scurry here end there — also with great power — at various points throughout the film. The Atmos configuration offers some of the best and most impressively integrated overhead elements yet in an Atmos track. Helicopters circle overhead before the invasion, and the same style of effect is really punctuated when people are trying to be quiet in the 16-minute mark. Further, there is a wonderful overhead element to falling rain effects around the 43-minute mark, along with rolling thunder in the background, and of course the total saturation means that all speakers carry the effect for a soaking impact on the listener. Environmental effects are excellent. Again, pre-invasion scenes out on city streets deliver wonderful immersion to the full impact of ambient sound, with every siren, bit of pedestrian chatter, and the like drawing the listener into the everyday New York hustle and bustle. And, of course, that ambient impact is only heightened when a slight sound penetrates the otherwise dead silence that is so crucial to the film. To make things even better, music is rousing in its clarity, space, and power, and dialogue is clear, centered, and perfectly prioritized. This is audio bliss.
This UHD release of A Quiet Place: Day One contains a few extras. No Blu-ray copy is included, but Paramount has bundled in a digital copy
code.
A Quiet Place: Day One is quite the film: a film of expertly crafted action and suspense but also superbly drawn and performed characters who give the film a meaning and depth beyond the action and the gimmick. And that is what has made this franchise work so well: it's based on a gimmick (be quiet or die), but it's always been about far more than that. It's about love and compassion that can be expressed in ways beyond words, and even in the worst of situations. This is a terrific entry in the series. Is it the best in the series? No, that still goes to the first film. Is it the least of the series? Probably, yes, but "least" in this series is still better than most of the movies that Hollywood cranks out anymore. This is a great genre film, a worthy (and worthwhile) entry into the franchise, and it portends good things going forward if this is the floor for it. Paramount's Blu-ray is every bit as exceptional as one would expect, offering near perfect video, perfect Atmos audio, and a nice assortment of extras. Very highly recommended!
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