Lord of War 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Lord of War 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 14, 2019

According to the frequently suspect Wikipedia, the very first Blu-ray discs appeared on June 20, 2006, which means that Lord of War was among the opening salvo of releases, coming out on June 27 of that year. Its early provenance is further supported by the data point that the Blu-ray release is number 49 in our database which is (more or less, anyway) chronologically arranged by release date. Lord of War was such an early Blu-ray release that it has a “Menu Tutorial” as one of its options which plays automatically at disc boot up to parlay important information about how to navigate a Blu-ray disc's menu structure (some home theater buffs may want the disc simply for its historical value in that regard). I’ve been joking for years now about Lionsgate’s patently bizarre “strategy” of 4K UHD releases, and it continues unabated with this offering, yet another one where the 1080p Blu-ray included in the package has little to no relationship (in terms of video appearance or sonics) to the 4K UHD disc, and whose 1080p Blu-ray would seem to suggest Lionsgate is getting rid of “remainders” any way it can (yes, that’s a joke, but maybe only barely).

For those wanting a recap on the plot mechanics of the film, I refer you to my colleague Martin Liebman's Lord of War Blu-ray review of the now long ago original Blu-ray release.

Lord of War 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from the (now quite old) 1080p Blu-ray. This is another Lionsgate release where the 1080p and 2160p versions exhibit some striking differences.

Lord of War is presented on 4K UHD courtesy of Lionsgate Films with a 2160p transfer in 2.40:1. The original 1080p Blu-ray was released so early in the high definition era that it was encoded in MPEG-2, and as Marty's Lord of War Blu-ray review indicates, the 1080p version sometimes exhibits a slightly digital appearance. That's commendably largely missing from the 4K UHD iteration, something that's especially noticeable in the opening moments of the film, which to my eyes looked digitally sharpened in the 1080p version. The increased resolution of the 4K version tends to only exaggerate what's already an at times very grainy looking presentation in the original 1080p Blu-ray outing, and I once again wasn't totally swayed by the grainfield in this version, which is once again rather widely variable, as a number of other Lionsgate 4K UHD releases have been. There's pretty chunky looking grain at intermittent moments throughout this presentation, often when brighter skies are prevalent. You can see kind of unnatural looking "swarming", where grain clumps just in parts of the frame, in scenes like the first circling move around Cage early in the film, but that tendency recurs, coming and going intermittently (there's another very noticeable uptick at circa 17:38, which then kind of ebbs back to "normal" levels). When grain is "tight" and well resolved, it looks very good and natural, but those who want a homogeneous grainfield may be surprised by how widely variant it is in this presentation. Detail levels are noticeably improved, even in some of these very grainy moments, and fine detail throughout the 4K presentation is often quite striking, though at times on picayune elements like some of the fabrics various "natives" wear. The use of close-ups of fingers throughout the credits sequence provides one of the clearest examples of uptick in fine detail, with the ridges of fingerprints being really distinctly improved in the 4K outing. Dolby Vision has added some noticeable improvements to various grading choices. The film has a very interesting use of blue and brown tones, and the 4K version often adds a slightly greenish to teal tint to some of the blue scenes (the gun show with the scantily clad women hawking weapons ware is a good example of the blue grading). There are some noticeably improved moments of saturation as well, as in some of the red crates seen on a tanker late in the film. Shadow detail is also better in several interior scenes, offering a better delineation of blacks and other darker tones (a late scene in a car offers some particular improvements in being able to see what's on the car seat).

Lord of War 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with the video element, the original 1080p Blu-ray release of Lord of War offered audio codecs that are rarely seen nowadays. Lionsgate has commendably upped the sonic ante on this 4K release by offering a Dolby Atmos track. That's the good news, though if there is bad, or at least cautioning, news, it's that Lord of War only sporadically erupts into audio overkill, and as such, some hoping for an "action adventure" extravaganza in the mix may be at least a little disappointed. There is occasional engagement of the Atmos channels, but it's often quite subtle, as in the slight creaking or moaning noise that almost resembles the Brazilian percussion instrument the cuica just as the film begins, or later in a scene featuring some airplanes delivering "supplies". There is often nice discrete placement of effects, again often quite subtly (that same opening sequence offers clear sounds of distant gunfire in the left channel). That said, one of the things that may tend to tamp down surround activity is the frequent use of narration by Cage's character, something that tends to predominate in the mix when it's utilized, making any surround activity (which is minimal in many of these moments to begin with) kind of fade into the background. Fidelity is superb throughout the presentation, and when there are moments of action, the sound mix can achieve good, if fleeting, bombast.

Lord of War 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

One of the admittedly nice things about these sometimes odd Lionsgate 4K UHD releases is that Lionsgate goes to the extra effort of including supplements when none (or few) were available on the original 1080p Blu-ray release. That's once again the case here, though those concerned about video quality should be aware that while all of the below are ostensibly in 1080p, they're clearly upscaled and have at times pretty bad artifacting. It's especially noticeable in the Deleted Scenes, which are anamorphically enhanced.

• Audio Commentary with Writer / Director Andrew Niccol


• The Making of Lord of War (1080p; 20:28) is an archival piece that has a number of good interviews, as well as some interesting information on both the weapons and locations utilized in the film.


• Making a Killing: Inside the International Arms Trade (1080p; 15:14) is an actually kind of chilling piece that documents the alarming sale of "different" kinds of weapons of mass destruction. There are some interesting talking heads here, including William Schulz of Amnesty International and Philip Coyle of the World Security Institute.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 6:34) offer seven snippets identified by scene marker numbers.

Lord of War 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Lord of War is a surprisingly thoughtful and at times rather provocative look at arms trading. Nicolas Cage has come in for his fair share of brickbats for some of his latter day performances (including by yours truly), but he's rather effective here as a scoundrel you can nonetheless at least kind of root for. In fact there are a number of scoundrels running rampant through Lord of War, and one of the kind of interesting if maybe subliminal things that happens as one watches the film is the same kind of desensitization to horrifying violence that several arms purveyors or utilizers in the film seem to have "mastered". The film's stylistic gambit of often dense grading choices and almost dreamlike (nightmarish?) framings achieves considerable improvement in this new 4K release, though I personally wish grain resolution could have looked a bit more consistent. The Dolby Atmos track is another nice improvement, though it comes with the forewarning that Lord of War may not totally satisfy those wanting a nonstop array of action adventure sound effects. Finally, Lionsgate has included some supplements that were not available on the original 1080p Blu- ray release, though the video supplements don't look great. All of this said, this is another kind of odd but interesting 4K UHD release from Lionsgate, and, let's face it, you can never have too many menu tutorials. Recommended.