Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Hans Zimmer: Live in Prague Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 13, 2017

Hans Zimmer may be one of only a few film and television composers whose name resonates with large swaths of the general public, people who might tend not to pay that much attention to so-called “below the line” credits when they’re watching their favorite movie or series. Zimmer had a long performing history with various bands (he can be seen briefly in the now iconic “Video Killed the Radio Star” video by the Buggles), but probably really burst into the cinematic mainstream with his scores for Rain Man and perhaps especially Driving Miss Daisy, a film whose bouncy theme matriculated to any number of other uses, including trailers for completely unrelated films. By the time Zimmer won his sole Academy Award (so far, anyway) for The Lion King (in an award that might be likened to Elmer Bernstein winning for Thoroughly Modern Millie, despite the fact that that film, like The Lion King, was a musical built on songs not by the award winning composer), he was certainly among the leading lights of his generation, a light which has continued to burn brightly in such films as As Good as it Gets, Gladiator, Sherlock Holmes, Inception and Interstellar, all of which brought Zimmer Academy Award nominations (if never a second statuette).

Zimmer is greeted as something closer to a rock star than a film and television composer in this appealing concert filmed in Prague's O2 Arena (and you thought London was the only place with one of those). And in fact the entire concert plays rather like an arena rock affair, with huge lighting arrays, and with performers who are performing, often with kind of cool high tech looking versions of their instruments. Zimmer is both an affable host, introducing many of the selections and offering some insight into them, while also playing a battery of instruments himself (not just limited to keyboards).

The concert features a number of medleys and/or segues into basically unrelated themes and scores, so I've provided numbers, per the packaging, for the offerings on the set list for this concert:

• 1. Opening Medley:

  Driving (Driving Miss Daisy)

  Discombobulate (Sherlock Holmes)

  Zoosters Breakout (Madagascar)

• 2. Crimson Tide (Crimson Tide)
• 160 BPM (Angels and Demons)


• 3. Gladiator

  The Wheat / The Battle / Elysium / Now We Are Free

• 4. Chevaliers de Sangreal (The Da Vinci Code)


• 5. The Lion King

  Circle of Life (Prelude)

  King of Pride Rock (Reprise)

• 6. Pirates of the Caribbean

  Captain Jack Sparrow / One Day / Up is Down / He's a Pirate

• 7. You're So Cool (True Romance)


• 8. Main Theme (Rain Man)


• 9. What Are You Going to Do When You Are Not Saving the World? (Man of Steel)


• 10. Journey to the Line (The Thin Red Line)


• 11. The Electro Suite (Themes from The Amazing Spider Man 2)


• 12. The Dark Knight Trilogy

  Why So Serious? / Like a Dog Chasing Cars / Why Do We Fall? / Introduce a Little Anarchy/ The Fire Rises

• 13. Aurora


• 14. Interstellar

  Day One / Cornfield Chase / No Time for Caution / Stay

• 15. Inception

  Half Remembered Dream / Dream is Collapsing / Mombasa / Time

Hans Zimmer: Live in Prague Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Hans Zimmer Live in Prague is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, and Universal Music Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a somewhat odd looking transfer at times, and I'm frankly not sure whether some of what is on display is intentional tweaking of the image or some compression issues. Take a look at screenshots 6 and 10, for example, to see some odd grittiness that almost does look intentional at some times, though that said, there are "instant" changes in clarity with a resultant lack of "splotchiness" when cameras are changed that may argue toward the other possibility. Detail levels are typically quite high throughout this presentation, though the director opts for a number of "arty" shots (like overhead placement of cameras), where the vantage point doesn't really support that much in the way of fine detail. The palette looks good throughout, though the concert is often bathed in deep, cobalt blue lighting regimens.

Hans Zimmer: Live in Prague Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Hans Zimmer Live in Prague is at least one of the first, and to my recollection maybe the first ever, concert I've reviewed with Dolby Atmos sound. While the actual concert sounds absolutely fantastic, with an almost palpable difference in amplitude and spaciousness noticeable between the Atmos track and the also included LPCM 2.0 track, I have to say that for the most part the Atmos channels tend to offer the spill of crowd noise more than any other single element. Zimmer's sometimes unusual orchestrations are presented with brilliant precision and clarity throughout this presentation, though, and the mix is extremely winning, offering both clear separation but also an organic wholeness in tutti passages.

Hans Zimmer: Live in Prague Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements included on the Blu-ray disc.

Hans Zimmer: Live in Prague Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Do you pay attention to "below the line" credits? If you do, you may well already be a major fan of Zimmer's work, and while this concert almost inevitably leaves a lot of his scores by the wayside, what's here is delivered with passion and a certain amount of performance flair, especially by some of the band members. Video has occasional hurdles, whether intentional or not, but audio is first rate throughout. Recommended.