La La Land 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

La La Land 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

La La Land famously came this close to taking home the Best Picture Academy Award, but will it finally nab the gold prize for its 4K UHD presentation? Read on. . .

La La Land 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

La La Land is presented on 4K UHD courtesy of Lionsgate Films with a 2160p transfer in the "old school" CinemaScope ratio of 2.55:1. Shot on film and finished at a 2K DI (according to the IMDb), this is another 4K "up res" that shows some significant if subtle uptick in detail levels but which really provides the blandishments of the UHD format in terms of its more nuanced palette, courtesy of HDR. There are several moments scattered throughout this often extremely colorful presentation where the palette popped with a new immediacy and at times with subtly altered interstitial tones. The first of these for me was the outdoor party pool scene (where Sebastian is forced to cover "unworthy" pop tunes), where everything from the pool water to things like bright red bathing suits looked more vivid and better saturated than in the 1080p version. Some of the best looking sequences in the 4K UHD version are the evocative nighttime sequences, including the scene directly after the party, when Sebastian and Mia take their first walk together, a scene where the blues and purples are incredibly suffused and have a greater range of gradation. The boardwalk scene's pinks undergo a similar transformation, and a lot of this 4K UHD presentation looked at least slightly warmer to my eyes than the 1080p version. One interesting thing that I've become a bit more aware of as we are getting more accustomed to 4K UHD releases is the look of film grain. Some releases have had really noisy looking grain, but that's not the case with La La Land. While it's pronounced at times (keep your eye on the blue wall behind Mia during that fantastic scene where she's interrupted giving the audition where she's supposedly on a phone call), it resolves organically and gives this presentation a really healthy and natural appearance.

A couple of passing notes about this release: this had a much longer than usual boot up process, and one where it sounded like the disc drive was struggling a bit to find the appropriate data. Once the main menu booted, though, there were no further problems. And I personally continue to experience rather pronounced judder at times during lateral pans (like the long one that opens the freeway sequence). I've had several people over to view 4K UHD discs with me, and the responses have been rather widely variant to people with regard to how strongly they perceive this issue. Some folks see it as strongly as I do, while it hardly seems to register with others, which may suggest some of us have some kind of visual cortex wiring that makes us more prone to seeing it.

La La Land 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 4K UHD disc sports the same great sounding Dolby Atmos track described in our La La Land Blu-ray review.

La La Land 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Lionsgate has wisely ported over all of the supplements detailed in our La La Land Blu-ray review for the 4K UHD version.

La La Land 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

La La Land rather deservedly won one of its Oscars for Linus Sandgren's gorgeous cinematography, and the carnival of colors on display throughout the film achieves a new luster in this great looking 4K UHD version. With the same wonderful sounding Dolby Atmos track and all of the supplements of the 1080p Blu-ray also included on the 4K UHD disc, this version of La La Land easily comes Highly recommended.