7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 3.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.6 |
Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour spans all decades of the iconic superstar's illustrious career, including songs from Rebel Heart to classic fan favorites like "Material Girl" and "Holiday." Memorable highlights from the tour include her first-ever live concert performance of "Take a Bow," acoustic versions of "Like a Prayer," celebrity guest dancers during the song "Unapologetic Bitch" such as Katy Perry, and many more unforgettable moments.
Starring: Madonna, Kevin Antunes, Kupono Aweau, Derrick Barry, Lil BuckMusic | 100% |
Documentary | 32% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080i
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: LPCM 2.0
English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 CD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Madonna has arguably never quite made it as a movie star, but if her Rebel Heart Tour is any indication, she knows how to provide amazing visuals for a Blu-ray concert release to accompany an interesting if kind of random assortment of tunes from her by now pretty long career. There’s a certain fashion in feature films nowadays to include little (supposedly subliminal) anti-piracy support by listing things like “14,000 were employed in the making and marketing of this film”, and a cursory parsing of the insert booklet included with this release suggests that, again somewhat cinematically, Madonna’s production crew for this tour is in the several hundred if not the thousands (I didn’t take time to actually count, but the credits go on literally for pages, in a very small font). This is all to say that this experience is certainly meant to be seen as much as it is to be listened to, and in fact some may find the visuals more generally amazing than some of Madonna’s by now very familiar songs.
Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour is presented on Blu-ray by a coalition including Eagle Vision (an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment), Universal Music Group, and Live Nation with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. As can hopefully be gleaned by several of the screenshots accompanying this review, directors Danny B. Tull and Nathan Rissman offer a pretty psychedelic array of effects at times, with superimpositions, pushed contrast, aggressive grading (including some black and white elements), and a host of other "bells and whistles" that gives this concert video a fairly heterogeneous appearance. The production is bathed in a variety of different hues, with some of the deepest red and blue tones tending to eradicate some fine detail, at least in midrange shots. In relatively normal lighting, the palette looks very natural and detail and fine detail levels are admirably well supported. Perhaps surprisingly for an interlaced presentation, there really aren't any major issues with the pixellated screens upstage of the main performance area, at least in terms of things like moiré or aliasing. While not a major problem, there are just very slight hints of minor banding when cameras are aimed squarely at lighting arrays or in some of the almost hallucinatory sequences where brightness or contrast has been tweaked.
Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks. The surround track has nice depth and well articulated separation between instruments. Commendably, vocals are always well prioritized and are rarely if ever buried in the instrumental masses, though they're arguably more forward and discernable in the stereo mix, however slightly. Crowd sounds occasionally intrude a bit more in the surround mix than the stereo mix, but are never overly distracting in my estimation. Clarity is exceptional throughout, with excellent reproduction across all ranges.
It probably goes without saying that Madonna is kind of a force of nature and needs to be reckoned with on her own terms. She still continues to push the envelope with this concert, but the production is actually rather awesome on its own merits, something that the video presentation only ups. This is one of those rare concert videos that is really meant to be seen as much as it is heard, and the visuals here are constantly over the top and often quite breathtaking. Technical merits are strong, and Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour comes Recommended.
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