Ocean's 8 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.5

Ocean's 8 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Warner Brothers and Best Buy have collaborated on a store-exclusive SteelBook release for 'Ocean's 8.' This review focuses on the SteelBook packaging and, from a technical perspective, exclusively on the UHD video presentation, with emphasis on the Dolby Vision color enhancement. Michael Reuben has reviewed the UHD presentation with its HDR-10 coloring. This is not a replacement of his review but rather a companion look at a second color format option available on the disc.

Ocean's 8 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc. Watch for 4K screenshots at a later date.

Ocean's 8 was reportedly photographed at a resolution of 3.4K and finished at 2K. This upscaled 2160p/Dolby Vision presentation delivers what might appear superficially modest improvements but that are nevertheless critical upgrades over the Blu-ray. The increase in resolution allows for much more clearly defined textures and sharper surfaces throughout the film that reveal everything with magnifying glass clarity and visibility. Character faces and hair, for example, are so precisely defined and pinpoint-clear that a few of the actresses border on appearing nearly plastic. Hair can be razor-sharp. Cate Blanchett's, for example, often appears so straight and precise that one can only wonder how much product went into making it so perfectly presentable, which only the UHD can reveal to such a degree of tangible accuracy (contrast to Helena Bonham Carter's much more frazzled, but no less precisely intricate, hairstyle). Likewise, the image bumps up sharpness so much that fine makeup streaks and bumps only enhance the partial sense of artificiality and sometimes otherworldly clarity. Textural wonders abound throughout, notably high-end clothes, resplendent diamonds and necklaces, and various New York City street exteriors and storefronts. It's not so much a huge increase in added detail but a huge increase in clarity and sharpness that set the UHD apart from the Blu-ray, and as Michael noted in his review, the series thrives on visual delights, which the UHD certainly delivers in spades.

The Dolby Vision color enhancement is actually more of a refinement than it is an explosion of drastically adjusted colors, but like the increase in sharpness Dolby Vision proves critical in bringing out the film at its very best. Debbie's orange prison wear seen in the film's opening minutes enjoys a modest, but appreciable, increase in depth and vitality. Jewels sparkle with much more intensity, whether large diamonds on the target necklace or a myriad of other, more diversely colorful jewels which are critical much later in the film. Examine a scene featuring Anne Hathaway's Daphne Kluger at the 15:30 mark. Dolby Vision's ability to resolve her red dress and matching lip shade with a deeper intensity, particularly playing against creamier skin compared to the Blu-ray, elevates the scene's visual impact by a significant margin. Not every color alteration is quite as dramatic, but many are. Dolby Vision's ability to provide dynamic, ever-evolving adjustments, so critical in a visually resplendent film such as this, really pulls it ahead of the Blu-ray, certainly, and to a much lesser degree the standard HDR component, which cannot output the same scene-to-scene adjusting workflow as Dolby Vision. Further, black level clarity and stability are much more even with Dolby Vision compared to the SDR Blu-ray, whether considering simply low light black saturation (a shot featuring the crew watching a presentation in a darkened room at the 31:30 mark) or a shot of New York's beautifully illuminated skyline at the 1:21:30 mark, where the UHD considerably tightens noise control, offers more deeply intense nighttime darks, and more accurately accentuates the brilliant blue lights that emanate from the top of several skyscrapers.

Further, encode efficiency is greatly improved. Take a look at an overhead establishing shot in the 13-minute mark. The Blu-ray is distractingly noisy while the UHD all but eliminates the issue. That is not to say that the image is noise-free here or elsewhere; it's still modestly bothersome at times but there's no mistaking the UHD's ability to better handle the data and resolve it superiorly for a more ideal presentation. This is a wonderful UHD release. It is perhaps one of the best examples of the format's ability to absolutely lock-down an image, even from a 2K master, and yield very impressive modern day digital-source results. This is by far the best way to view the film at home.

Ocean's 8 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

For a full analysis of the film's Dolby Atmos sound presentation, please click here.

Ocean's 8 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The SteelBook features a predominantly red coloring across its entire exterior surface. A large white number "8" features most prominently on the front cover. Above is the film's title in large print and a cast listing above that. Below are silhouettes of Ocean's crew, each projecting forward-facing shadows towards the bottom of the case. The rear side carries over that red color and is blank beyond a white-text credits cluster taking up the bottom third or so of the package. The spine, also dominantly red, features the film's title in white and a little off-center towards the top. Above is a Blu-ray disc logo and below are WB and Village Roadshow logos.

Inside, the digital copy code is tucked underneath the left-hand side tabs. The two discs, one Blu-ray and one UHD, are housed on the right, staggered-stacked. The inner print is a two-panel spread image, a scene depicting the entire 8-person crew riding a subway car, a shot from the movie that can be found at the 1:41:38 mark.

Ocean's 8's UHD disc contains no supplemental content, but the Blu-ray bundled in this SteelBook does. For a full breakdown of the included extras, please click here. For convenience, below is a list of what's included.

• Deleted Scenes
• Reimagining the Met Gala
• A Heist in Heels
• Ocean's Team 3.0

Ocean's 8 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ocean's 8 is a breezy film featuring a smartly assembled cast, yielding an organically performed and highly entertaining Caper that's arguably the best in the series. With the occasion of its home video and particularly UHD release, it's a shame Warner Brothers didn't indulge series fans with the almost obligatory UHD releases of the original trilogy, but the good news is that this UHD is a blast, visually and aurally. The SteelBook is a wonderful delivery method as well that film and packaging fans should find well worth the added cost. Very highly recommended.