Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		0.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 12, 2022

Shout! Factory has released the fan-favorite 1989 Comedy 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure' to the UHD format. New specifications include 2160p/Dolby Vision video. No new audio track has been included; the release simply ports the legacy 5.1 and 2.0 lossless soundtracks. No new extras are included; this set contains two commentary tracks, an hour-long retrospective, and a trailer.

Official synopsis: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure finds our non-heinous heroes (Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves) in danger of flunking History – a most odious proposition! But when the righteous Rufus (George Carlin) arrives in a time-traveling phone booth, the dense dudes discover their destiny ... and call on the past's biggest names for help!

For a full film review, please click here; note that this link points to the 2012 Blu-ray (also note that the film score above reflects my own).

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from Shout! Factory's previously released 1080p Blu-ray disc.

Shout! Factory brings Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure into the present age of home theater technology with a new 2160p/Doby Vision presentation. The film looks good but not quite great. The resolution uptick and the resultant filmic presentation is the highlight here. The picture presents with a handsomely grainy and organic appearance. The grain is gentle and natural, never feeling overly aggressive or underwhelmingly splotchy. It's a natural, flattering look that does the film roots proud. Detail is solid and represents a nice gain from the Shout! Blu-ray for overall image clarity and textural visibility. Fine clothing details are obvious through the whole range of attire, whether the grungier clothes Bill and Ted wear, Freud's suit, or Genghis Khan's fur. Small details inside and outside of the phone booth offer appealing levels of wear and use, while the slick and clean future scenes benefit little in the grand scheme of things simply due to their spartan nature. Overall, however, this is a nice gain for the film and the filmic look is most welcome.

The Dolby vision color grading is somewhat disappointing. The image looks slightly blown out. It's too bright, rendering skin looking pale and clothes not particularly deep and vibrant. The Dolby Vision grading has not added a serious amount of contrast depth and temperature exactness to the picture, leaving it looking fairly flat overall. Still, essential reds and blues hold up well, and the barrage of secondaries in various locales, from classrooms to shopping malls, hold up well enough. The problem is persistent but not so debilitating as to ruin the experience. Still, casual viewers, never mind videophiles, will likely note that lack of serious tonal depth and command in favor of the airy, washed-out look. This extends to black levels as well. This is not a deal breaker, but it is a disappointment.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This UHD release of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure includes the same audio offerings as the previous Shout! Factory offerings: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 soundtracks. Both sound fine and fans should not be overly disappointed that the studio did not go the extra mile to re-encode for Dolby Atmos. For full audio coverage, please click here.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Supplementally, this UHD release of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is something of a mixed bag. It does not include all of the extras from the Most Excellent Collection Blu-ray release but does include the meat of the supplemental content: two commentaries and an hour-long retrospective. It would be nice if the material here was more thorough in number, but what is here will satisfy even the film's most ardent fans. See below for a list of what's included and please click through various links above for more on what each extra actually entails. No Blu-ray or digital copy codes are included with purchase. This release does not appear to ship with a slipcover.

• Audio Commentary: Star Alex Winter and Producer Scott Kroopf.
• Audio Commentary: Writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon.
• Time Flies When You're Having Fun! - A Look Back at a Most "Excellent Adventure"
• Theatrical Trailer

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is not a most excellent release nor a particularly excellent 2160p/Dolby Vision video. "Good?" Yeah. "Solid?" Sure. But not excellent. The picture looks very nice, but the Dolby Vision color grading looks a bit flat and washed out. Still, the picture is otherwise nicely organic and filmic and a decent step forward from the legacy Shout! Blu-ray. Unfortunately, there's nothing else here to entice a buy: no new audio, no new extras, not even a slipcover. Hardcore fans of the film will want to own this, but casuals will likely be well satisfied to simply hang on to the legacy Blu-ray.