Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Maleficent 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Disney's live action 'Maleficent' released to Blu-ray in November 2014 to excellent technical result. Disney has re-released the film to the UHD format ahead of the sequel's release. New specifications include 2160p/HDR video and Dolby Atmos audio. The bundled Blu-ray is identical to that which launched in 2014 and no new extras appear on the UHD disc.

Maleficent 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc.

Maleficent's UHD upgrade is a pleasant surprise. The movie was reportedly per IMDB digitally photographed at a resolution of 2.8K and finished at 2K. Disney's upscaled UHD is quite nice altogether, delivering a fairly sturdy boost to textural clarity and color reproduction alike. The 2160p resolution brings a new feel for total image clarity and textural finesse to the movie. Skin details are much more accurately pronounced, with clarity boosted by quite a bit and visual firmness and razor-sharpness increased to plainly obvious levels, even without conducting a comparison; anyone with eyes accustomed to 1080p limitations will immediately notice young Maleficent's skin clarity and the dazzling detail evident in the movie's first close-up in the opening minutes. It's an eye-opening and very auspicious beginning that carries through the film. As noted, overall clarity is on the rise within the UHD's presentation. It's a very smooth, well defined picture that manages to bring out the best in the ornate costumes and complexly designed set pieces, not just skin and makeup. The UHD does have the drawback of showing a few of the digital seams; some of the creatures and other special effects have a noisy look about them, but for the most part this world sparkles with a clarity and sheen well beyond Blu-ray's capabilities.

The HDR color gamut is also of benefit to the presentation. It brings with it the usual adds to depth and contrast, punch and intensity. The color gamut appears more accurate across the board, from bright red lipstick to beautifully honed natural greenery. The movie is very dark at many points, and blacks hold deep with impressive tonal accuracy, maintaining a strict level of output without veering towards crush or, perhaps even worse for a movies of this sort, appearing too washed out or gray/purple. Additional benefits include perfectly dialed grays and blues, expertly presented skin tones that are a product of surrounding lighting and atmosphere, more intensely luminous bright light sources (look at the purple points of light in chapter 10), and impressively brilliant whites. Factor in the absence of distracting noise in quantity and other source or encode artifacts and Maleficent looks marvelous on UHD.

Maleficent 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Though a typical Disney soundtrack with the usual issues, Maleficent's Dolby Atmos soundtrack makes for a fairly good compliment to the movie. The lack of range is not a death sentence, and with the volume upwardly adjusted the proceedings are adequately pleasing, with good, healthy musical spacing and clarity. Surrounds engage as needed to support both music and effects, which can be fairly fluid and large in support of the more intensive action scenes, including a ferocious dragon attack in chapter 18 which brings with it a solid low end output, well defined and seamlessly fluid surround integration, and a good overall feel for the raucous chaos that ensues as people scream and flee, fires rage, and structures collapse, combined with a prominent but balanced musical explosion, itself full of stage-saturating goodness and intense low end usage. Overhead channels are mostly complimentary in output, never really standing apart with plainly discrete effects but serving the track's more fluid essentials with suddenly vital flavoring. Dialogue is clear and detailed from a well prioritized front-center channel. Despite some limitations the track is very enjoyable with the necessary tweak to volume from reference level.

Maleficent 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This UHD release of Maleficent contains no supplemental content, but the bundled Blu-ray, which is identical to that which released back in 2014, contains the following extras, a paltry package then and particularly now. For full supplemental content coverage, please click here. This release also includes a Movies Anywhere digital copy code and ships with an embossed slipcover.

• Aurora: Becoming a Beauty
• From Fairy Tale to Feature Film
• Building an Epic Battle
• Classic Couture
• Maleficent Revealed
• Deleted Scenes

Maleficent 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fans will find Maleficent's UHD well worth the upgrade. Both the increases in clarity and the boosts to color make for noticeable gains. The Dolby Atmos track isn't half-bad when it's all said and done. Extras are rather scant and nothing new is included, but at least Disney has made the previously issued content available to UHD buyers. Highly recommended, and there's also a SteelBook packaging variant aimed at collectors.