Air Force One 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Air Force One 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Five full years after the arrival of Sony's original 4K edition, Wolfgang Peterson's Air Force One returns to UHD with a Dolby Vision upgrade that edges past that earlier disc's HDR10 enhancement. Much like Groundhog Day, it's a slightly better version of an already-great release, one that will also appeal to collectors with attractive Steelbook packaging. Oddly enough, though, it narrowly missed the film's 25th anniversary by about six months; I should know, because this big ol' slice of action-thriller nostalgia served as an enjoyably campy first-date movie for yours truly and his now-wife, who gladly watch it every year like clockwork. Hey, it's no masterpiece, but at least we didn't pick Spawn.

Air Force One 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

NOTE: This review's screenshots are sourced from the included Blu-ray disc -- the very same one included on both the original 4K edition and the stand-alone disc released all the way back in 2009.

Like Sony's earlier 4K releases of Groundhog Day and The Mask of Zorro, this new 4K Steelbook utilizes an already great 4K master with the newly-added benefit of Dolby Vision... so if your setup doesn't support DV (meaning your player, your receiver (if applicable), and your display), then you won't see a big difference here. Of course it's also worth noting that Martin Liebman already awarded the earlier 4K a perfect 5/5, so where do we go from here?

Up a little further, apparently. Newly encoded on a triple-layer (100GB) disc with Dolby Vision enhancement, Air Force One now looks like an even more perfect presentation of an already-great 4K transfer. The previous disc's HDR10 pass was impressive for its faithful replication of the film's distinctly late 1990s appearance , with no modernized "teal and orange" color timing or, worse yet, overcooked amplification of the colors; only a handful of moments, such as a mid-air refueling explosion deep into the home stretch, bordered on "electric". This means, of course, that the wide majority of Air Force One looks exactly as it should with natural skin tones – depending on the lighting, of course – and bold (but not overcooked) saturation levels, as well as outstanding image detail, film grain, and overall stability.

Not surprisingly, then, the "Video Quality" rating in Martin's linked review of that earlier 4K edition offers a cursory overview of what the base values of this transfer look like, with the main upgrades here tied directly to both its slightly beefier encoding and, of course, the built-in strength of Dolby Vision enhancement. Depending on your setup's DV calibration and other factors, such as local dimming, you will likely notice a better-resolved picture overall, and one that adapts to the film's changing locations and lighting schemes a bit more smoothly. On-screen displays, strong light sources cutting through the darkness, deeper color contrast -- all are achieved to a small but noticeably higher degree here. It's unavoidably not a night-and-day improvement, of course, which means that this technically better overall presentation may not be drastic enough to warrant an immediate second purchase for all but Air Force One's most faithful fans; after all, the original 4K disc was correctly rated the first time around and, depending on your tolerance for slight upgrades at a premium price, "plain old HDR10" might very well be good enough for most eyes.

Air Force One 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Since this release carries over both the same great Dolby Atmos remix and original DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track from the earlier 4K disc, please read Marty's review of the that release for more details.

A word about the subtitles: Although the subtitle options appear identical to the previous 4K edition on paper, it's been reported that this presentation of the film actually corrects certain mistranslated portions of Russian dialogue on the burned-in subtitles. That's something that has apparently been a problem since the original Blu-ray.

Air Force One 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Seen above, the slightly glossy Steelbook packaging sports an illustrative collage depicting the film's main characters set against a Rocky IV-style "us vs. them" backdrop; a foreboding image of Air Force One in distress dominates the bottom half. It's framed by a clean border with subtle gradient design elements that resemble a radar screen, which also applies to the back image of enemy fighters targeting the plane mid-flight. It's a fitting design but unfortunately the interior is plain black, decorated only by the Digital Copy insert and artwork on both discs.

The slim bonus features, while identical to the original 4K edition, are technically all here... but annoyingly, the feature-length audio commentary is absent from the UHD disc this time around for unknown reasons.

4K DISC

• Theatrical Trailer (2:27)

BLU-RAY DISC

• Audio Commentary - Featuring director Wolfgang Peterson and host Michael Coleman.

Air Force One 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Air Force One may rely on flag-waving patriotism and sorely dated "us against them" theatrics, but damned if it still isn't entertaining enough to be ranked as one of the decade's most effective action movies. It's a perennial favorite around these parts, bought and enjoyed on every mainstream format from VHS onward – sometimes even twice in the same generation. That's certainly the case for 4K: Sony once again serves up a definitive technical presentation of this great looking and sounding film, this time sweetened with Dolby Vision and beefier encoding but otherwise a pretty close tie with their earlier UHD release. (Other small improvements, like the fixed Russian subtitles and sleek Steelbook packaging, are certainly welcome too.) It's obviously worth a purchase for the film's biggest fans, Steelbook collectors, and those who didn't buy the first 4K edition, but otherwise is more of a "sooner or later" upgrade.