Now You See Me 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Now You See Me 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Now You See Me 2 has opened to some fairly withering reviews (as that very hyperlink will prove), and the film is doing something of a disappearing act domestically at the box office (though its global returns are actually fairly brisk). Lionsgate evidently wanted to tie-in a 4K UHD release of the first film, but a screener only just arrived, which some conspiracy theorists may want to link to those aforementioned reviews. I haven’t actually seen the sequel yet, but the first film has some midline pleasures, and it’s consistently stylish. Whether that all magically transforms into a “must buy” 4K UHD release has to wait for (to purloin a phrase from the magician’s vocabulary) The Prestige (in other words, the final section below).

Now You See Me 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Now You See Me is presented on 4K UHD courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an HEVC / H.265 encoded 2160p transfer in 2.40:1. Kind of like its very plot, Now You See Me's provenance chain is a bit convoluted. This was shot on good, old fashioned film with Arriflex 235s, then finished at a 2K DI, which I am assuming was then uprezzed for this new 4K UHD release. This new presentation certainly still boasts the typically flawless levels of clarity with regard to issues like skin pores or textures of fabrics. There's a more nuanced accounting of intermediary tones now, especially in some of the almost burnt umber interior colorings, and contrast is improved in some of the darkest scenes, including a couple of sequences in Las Vegas, though black levels are often anemic at best and therefore tend to work against even improved contrast. The manic camera moves accompanied by some soft looking CGI tends to make a few isolated scenes look relatively gauzy in comparison to the bulk of the presentation. One element which I found just slightly odd looking was the grain resolution. This certainly does not approach some of the issues mentioned in my Wild 4K Blu-ray review, but I occasionally thought the grain "traveled" a bit weirdly, especially in some extreme close- ups where the frame is filled with virtually nothing other than a face. This may be an after effect of the uprez from a 2K DI, though in fairness there was a lot of the presentation where the grain field looked natural, or at least didn't distract as much.

Now You See Me 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Now You See Me ups the audio ante on 4K UHD by including a Dolby Atmos track (with a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 core which is for all intents and purposes identical to the DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track on the original Blu-ray). I scored the original Blu-ray release a 5.0 for audio, and that excellence is only improved here, with some great object placement courtesy of the Atmos speakers. Listen, for example, to the subtle but pronounced "flutter" of the deck of cards in an early scene (right before the "reveal" of the skyscraper providing the missing card), or, later, in some of the Las Vegas show sequences, where pinpoint placement of discrete effects is wonderfully immersive. That said, I found some of the crowd noise in the Las Vegas show scenes just a trifle "processed" sounding on occasion. LFE gets a work out not just due to some traditional effects work, but to an often thumping score, one which also spills through the surrounds quite winningly. Dialogue is always foremost in the mix and is rendered cleanly and clearly on this very enjoyable and problem free track.

Now You See Me 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The 4K UHD has no supplemental material, and the score above reflects that lack. The standard 1080p Blu-ray disc included in this package includes all of the supplements detailed in our original Now You See Me Blu-ray review.

Now You See Me 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Okay, "prestige" time. Now You See Me is completely illogical (as I mentioned in the original review), which is not to say it's not enjoyable a lot of the time. I'm not sure the style of this film, as flashy as it often is, really lends itself to the kind of "wow" visuals early proponents of 4K UHD are going to be looking for, and so my hunch is this release will probably appeal most to those who didn't pick up the original Blu-ray release, but who now have 4K technology in their homes and wouldn't mind seeing the film in that version. That said, this may serve better as a middling example of the new technology, in video quality if not in audio, rather than as a prized reference disc.