Fantastic 4 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Fantastic 4 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

"Fantastic" may be a bit of a "stretch," but the UHD is pretty "hot" (sorry Ben and Sue, no puns for you!).

The future is here! 20th Century Fox has released the first wave of UHD Blu-ray (4K/3840x2160p resolution) discs. We've posted a companion article detailing the UHD upgrade experience here. Watch for more reviews for these 20th Century Fox UHD Blu-rays in the coming days and, of course, Blu-ray.com will be covering every UHD release in the future.

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc. Watch for 4K screenshots at a later date.

Fantastic 4 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Fantastic 4 4K stands as one of the lesser titles, from a critical perspective, amongst 20th Century Fox's first wave of UHD Blu-ray releases, hitting shelves alongside Exodus: Gods and Kings, Wild, The Martian, Hitman: Agent 47, Kingsman: The Secret Service, The Maze Runner, The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, Life of Pi, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. But is it also a lesser UHD title? According to the film's IMDB Technical Specs Page, the movie was shot at 2.8K and 3.4K and finished on a 2K Digital Intermediate. As of today, there's no reason to assume the UHD is not sourced from that 2K DI.

Fantastic 4 doesn't exactly offer a stunner of a picture to begin with. It's an inherently drab, sometimes even dark film with limited splashes of popping colors and a very clean, smoothed out veneer. The 1080p Blu-ray captured it well, providing good foundational detail, image clarity, and color. The UHD disc offers minor-to-moderate, but evident, refinement. Colors -- even rather flat shades of dark blue -- are more precise. Finer fabric details are more revealing. Perhaps most immediately noticeable is the improvement in facial definition. On the Blu- ray, Kate Mara's skin is so smooth it almost looks like plastic. On UHD, it retains that sense of flawlessness, but with a more richly defined skin texture that captures the very finest pores, makeup applications, and lines in her lips that on Blu-ray are only crudely visible, all evident even in medium shots. A good place to compare may be found in chapter four in a scene featuring Kate Mara and Miles Teller speaking to one another at a library table. It's well lit and shows ample opportunity to compare her face and his shirt (and her plaid shirt, for that matter) in close-up detail. The differences, while not awe-inspiring, certainly demonstrate the casual improvements audiences will enjoy with the new format, even from material that's not natively 4K.

Other improvements and general observations of the transfer's best moments include the scars on Richards' face, fine pore and facial hair strands on both Richards and Doom, pores and scars on Johnny's face following his car accident, small smudges on the space suit helmets, scuffs and longstanding wear on an interrogation table, Thing's rocky texture and both the intimate crevices and raised ridges alike, and the fine detailing on the Fantastic uniforms, and Johnny's meshy getup in particular. Colors, boosted by HDR (High Dynamic Range) support, enjoy deeper, but not significant, saturation. The movie isn't abundantly colorful to begin with, but fiery oranges, the toxic green alien colors on the alternate dimension planet that later infuse Doom, blue hazard suits, computer display readouts, and other small colored accents satisfy beyond the 1080p Blu-ray's capabilities. Skin tones are a little more flush, but still favor the movie's cooler, pastier look. Black levels find good balance, though minor variations in depth appear along the UHD experience.

Further, Fox's 2160p UHD presentation is never excessively noisy. Macroblocking and banding are never an issue, and neither is aliasing, save for a couple of extremely minor examples that may be more a small awkward surface reflection than a true technical fault (evident on both the Blu- ray and the UHD). Overall this is a very technically proficient and seemingly faithful presentation. This isn't a showcase UHD disc to be sure, but that doesn't make it without its benefits and merits. The oftentimes subtle, but critical, uptick in color saturation and, much more important to a movie of this style, clarity and definition make it an improvement over the standard Blu-ray.

Fantastic 4 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Fantastic 4 4K doesn't offer any new Atmos or DTS:X soundtrack options. Please see Jeffrey Kauffman's review of the included DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless soundtrack here.

Fantastic 4 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Fantastic 4 4K contains no supplements exclusive to the UHD disc. All extras are available on the included 1080p disc. For a full review, please click here.

Fantastic 4 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fantastic 4 shows some promise early on, but any interesting character drama and universe lore is wiped away once the movie finally decides to engage in action in its final act. Dull, repetitive fight scenes and awful dialogue during the fight and in the movie's closing moments completely destroy an otherwise entertaining and engaging opening act. The 4K UHD presentation, however, is quite good. Picture quality is an improvement, albeit a more subtle one, over the 1080p Blu-ray counterpart (also included with purchase). Fox has not boosted the audio with an Atmos or DTS:X soundtrack, but the included 7.1 experience is superb. Extras remain the same, and appear only on the 1080p disc. Fans should wait to purchase when the disc goes on sale. As a reference UHD disc, both The Martian and Exodus: Gods and Kings offer more dazzle.