Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 17, 2017

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.

The Rebel Heart Tour kicked off in Montreal in September of 2015 and then spent around seven months visiting four continents and a reported 55 venues all over the world. Despite some info which suggests the concert was only filmed in Sydney, some press material provided to me states that it was evidently culled from many of the different locations, but one way or the other it’s assembled as almost a stream of consciousness event, with bizarre, almost Fellini-esque at times, visuals providing segue material, and even some of the productions of various tunes feeling like a Hollywood musical on some kind of mind altering drug. With so-called "video interludes" bearing names like Messiah and Illuminati, one might assume there's some mystical through line with this concert, but if so, I have to say it escaped my obviously prosaic sensibilities, but in the long run any supposed "meaning" really doesn't matter all that much, since the tunes keep coming and the production values are so uniformly high.

Despite getting up into AARP territory, Madonna looks great and certainly still has energy to spare in several convoluted dance sequences. She also sounds a bit more full voiced, with better fluidity and a less nasal quality than in some of her younger work. As usual for a Madonna production, the backup singers, dancers and instrumentalists are all top notch and offer a cavalcade of energizing moments.

The setlist contained on the Blu-ray is:

Rebel Heart Tour Intro
Iconic
Bitch I'm Madonna
Burning Up
Holy Water / Vogue
Devil Pray
Messiah (Video Interlude)
Body Shop
True Blue
Deeper and Deeper
Heartbreakcity
Like a Virgin
S.E.X.
Living for Love
La Isla Bonita
Dress You Up / Into the Groove
Rebel Heart
Illuminati (Video Interlude)
Music
Candy Shop
Material Girl
La Vie En Rose
Unapologetic Bitch
Holiday

Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• An Excerpt from "Tears of a Clown" (1080i; 14:56) is in kind of noisy looking black and white and is perhaps a kind of combo platter of performance art and Madonna offering an unsolicited audition tape for a remake of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, at least as evidenced by her even more bizarre than usual costume and (especially) makeup choices.


• Like a Prayer (1080i; 4:36) is from the concert.

Additionally this DigiPak comes with a Bonus CD containing the following tracks:

Rebel Heart Tour Intro
Iconic
Bitch I'm Madonna
Burning Up
Holy Water / Vogue
Devil Pray
Deeper and Deeper
Heartbreakcity
Living for Love
La Isla Bonita
Rebel Heart
Candy Shop
Unapologetic Bitch
Holiday

Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.