Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Godzilla 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Sony has released 1998's silly but so-much-fun Monster/Disaster movie 'Godzilla' to the UHD format. The disc includes a new 2160p/HDR transfer and a new Dolby Atmos soundtrack. The UHD disc additionally includes a trio of trailers (in 1080p/SDR unfortunately) as well as a replication of the 2009 Blu-ray and all of its supplemental features.

Godzilla 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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

Godzilla's UHD stomps all over the previously issued Blu-ray. It's not even close when considering the monstrous upgrades to both texture and color. Though much of the film takes place in gray, overcast city locations during the day and dark and dreary nighttime exteriors and interiors where light is at a premium and there's not ample opportunity for extreme detail revelations, there's no mistaking the image's vast superiority and firm, filmic credentials in any lighting or environment. The movie certainly looks at its best under optimal conditions, such as when Tatopoulos is brought to the island to work the footprint find in the movie's opening minutes. The absolute image clarity and razor-sharp skin, clothing, and environmental textures are striking, and the grain field appears perfectly complimentary, evenly distributed, and very organic. There are only a few fleeting occurrences when the grain field pushes more fuzzy and dense. The bland, gray-dominant cityscapes and various scenes along street level look tremendous. New York comes to life in 4K even without the benefit or better illumination. Paved streets, storefronts and building façades, and certainly characters and cars and other high-yield elements greatly benefit from the UHD's improved sharpness, so much so that the Blu-ray appears almost pitifully fuzzy in comparison.

The increase in color saturation and brilliance is nothing short of striking, too. Though much of the movie takes place under those aforementioned gray and dark tones, the few brightly intense and colorful scenes, such as that referenced above when Tatopoulos is first taken to the site where the footprint has been discovered, offer the most impressively obvious HDR applications and upgrades the UHD format has yet seen. In that sequence, the sky transforms from a dull, faded blue on the Blu-ray to a lively, intense brilliance on the UHD. Natural green terrains and military fatigues additionally find vast improvements to depth and punch (and the sequence is also one of the best examples of the image's improvements to sharpness). The gray cityscapes find tighter depth and color nuance, offering a more organic display of variations on the theme both during the overcast and wet daytimes and through the darker nighttime shots and low-light interior locations. Skin tones hold true in every condition and black level depth is nearly perfect. This is another substantial UHD upgrade from Sony. The studio continues to release knockout after knockout onto the UHD market.

Godzilla 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Even dating back to DVD (and probably even LaserDisc), Godzilla's soundtracks have been monstrous achievements in sonic excellence. The 2009 Blu-ray's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack was heretofore the standard for the film and also one of the torchbearers for 5.1 lossless excellence. But this Dolby Atmos presentation takes things to a whole new level, quite literally, in fact. The opening title music presents with organic width and complimentary depth, excellent clarity, and the following nuclear explosion rumbles with quality low end push. In the following scene, thunder cracks and rolls throughout the stage while a steady, heavy barrage of falling rain -- a sonic signature throughout the film -- saturates the stage with unusually impressive immersion and a tangible top end component. A blaring alarm emanates from the back but with a healthy feel for spacial immersion beyond the rears. As the ship rocks and rolls in the storm, objects fall, the ship creaks and moans, and sonic chaos reigns. Water spills through as Godzilla tears into the hull. It's simply the first example of a full-on sonic assault that leaves no speaker anything but breathlessly worked and pushed to their limits.

The real fun begins when Godzilla makes landfall in New York. The track is everything one would expect it to be, offering the ultimate in low end response, chaotic yet balanced and immersive crashes and slams, and plenty of amazing Godzilla screeches and roars. Apache helicopters rush about the stage with seamless directional detail and flow and tremendous zip and depth to spinning rotors, which sometimes sound as if they are above the listener as the scene allows. A barrage of small arms and rocket fire delivers a startling full-stage assault when the creature is ambushed after being served a mountain of fish. The scene is defined by organic shot movement and flow and powerful impacts. Falling debris and another Godzilla bass-fueled rampage extravaganza follows. There is plenty of overhead engagement throughout, even if it's just a feel for roar and rumble and general atmosphere. The movie's components are always in perfect working order. There's no shallowness, no timidity, nothing standing in its way. Add in perfectly balanced and detailed atmospherics and precision dialogue reproduction and there's nothing to call this track but "reference."

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

Supplementally speaking, Godzilla's UHD disc only contains a few trailers for the film. The bundled Blu-ray, which is identical to the disc Sony released in 2009, includes supplements as listed below. For full coverage of these extras, please click here. In addition to the UHD and Blu-ray discs, a Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase. This release ships with a non-embossed slipcover.

UHD:

• Teaser Trailer 1 (1080p, 1:36).
• Teaser Trailer 2 (1080p, 1:56).
• Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 1:46).

• The Ultimate Godzilla Multi-Player Trivia Game
• 2012 Sneak Peek
• Audio Commentary: With Visual Effects Supervisor Volker Engel and Associate Visual Effects Supervisor Karen Goulekas.
• Behind the Scenes of Godzilla With Charles Caiman
• All Time Best of Godzilla Fight Scenes
• Music Video: "Heroes" by The Wallflowers.
• Previews: Ghostbusters, The Da Vinci Code, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Year One, The Sky Crawlers, and Monster House.

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

Not to drag politics into a review for Godzilla (though it seems partly apropos considering Roland Emmerich made Roger Ebert into a political caricature in the movie), but Sony's UHD releases bring to mind Donald Trump's proclamation that "we will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with the winning." Sony is doing nothing but winning with its UHD releases, and, nope, nobody is bored of it. Godzilla earns another spectacular UHD release from the studio that has to be labeled as the format's best friend. The picture quality is a massive upgrade in terms of both detail and color and the audio finds improvements in what was already a first-class lossless presentation from the Blu-ray. There are no real upgrades to the supplemental content beyond a few trailers, but in terms of what matters this UHD is a beast. Hopefully a UHD release of 2012 is not far behind. Very highly recommended.