Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		0.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

Planes, Trains & Automobiles 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman November 15, 2022

Paramount has released the classic 1987 Comedy 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles' to the UHD format. New specifications include 2160p/Dolby Vision video. No new audio is included. This two-disc set also includes a Blu-ray disc with new bonus features.

Neal Page (Steve Martin) just wants to get home for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, home is in snowy Chicago, and he's trapped in a business meeting in New York. He fails to flag down a cab, despite his best efforts both monetary and otherwise, and he winds up missing his plane. Seated across from him in the terminal and awaiting the same later flight is Del Griffith (John Candy), a shower curtain ring salesman who lugs around an oversized trunk, the same man who "stole" Neal's cab hours earlier. As fate would have it, they're also seat mates aboard the Chicago-bound flight, but they're diverted from the Windy (Snowy) City to Wichita where stranded travelers have booked every room around, that is every room except for the one that Del just so happened to grab upon landing. And so Neal's and Del's daylong journey together becomes a shared night in a cheap motel. Little do they know that their stay together -- which sees Del trash the place with his slovenly habits and Neal unload his frustrations on his fellow stranded traveler -- is but the first stop on a journey of self-discovery, blossoming friendship, and a whole lot of travel mishaps.

For a full film review, please click here.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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

Planes, Trains & Automobiles boards the UHD format with a decidedly underwhelming 2160p/Dolby Vision UHD presentation. The picture appears to fall victim to unnecessary processing; it seems that grain has been removed and the image smoothed and softened, only to have an artificial grain returned. The result is an uneven image that looks nothing like the rich, organic, natural film texture that should be in evidence (and sometimes is) from beginning to end. The image should have been a home run for filmic purity on a format well capable of revealing that; this is a simple image with very little complexity about it, but the end result is a picture that has been clearly tampered with, lessening sharpness and reducing all of the good, natural characteristics in favor of bad, unnatural characteristics. There is still some decent natural sharpness evident here and there; skin details are occasionally rich and some of the shoddy interiors at the Braidwood Inn, even with relatively poor light, manage to show some grime and wear around the room, but this is a far, far cry from what could have been, and frankly what should have been.

The Dolby Vision grading hardly offers any sort of tonal revelation, either. True, the image enjoys some additional depth, but with that depth comes some crush. When Del's "dogs are barking" on the plane and he's rubbing his feet, his black sock entirely melts into the picture; it's a black glob and only when he removes the sock does the shot become clear. General tonal stability is fair on various clothes, cabs, and other colors throughout the film, but the palette never really sparkles or dazzles. This is a fairly flat and muted Dolby Vision grading that does offer improvements over the Blu-ray for color stability and depth and white balance, but overall, it's not very interesting. This is a disappointing catalogue UHD release overall, disappointing because it should look better and disappointing because this is a classic film that deserves a far better treatment than this.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Rather than remix for Dolby Atmos, Paramount has simply chosen to drop the existing DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack onto this UHD. For a full audio review, please click here.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This UHD release of Planes, Trains & Automobiles includes extras on the UHD disc and on disc two, which is a Blu-ray, though not the Blu-ray feature film. Instead, it is a second disc devoted to a pair of new extras: deleted scenes and audition footage. All of the extras on the UHD disc are identical to those found on the old Blu-ray (please click here for full coverage of the legacy extras). A digital copy code and a non-embossed slipcover are included with purchase.

UHD:

• Getting There is Half the Fun: The Story of Planes, Trains and Automobiles
• John Hughes: Life Moves Pretty Fast
• John Hughes for Adults
• A Tribute to John Candy

Blu-ray:

• NEW! Deleted and Extended Scenes (1080p upscaled, 1:15:27 total runtime): From the disc: "This collection of extended and deleted scenes...was recently discovered in the archives of writer, producer and director John Hughes. The low picture and audio quality of this material is due to the age and format of the VHS tapes on which the scenes were found." Included are Waiting to Board (Extended), Seatmates (Extended), Airplane Food (Deleted), Dooby's Taxiola (Extended), Edelen's Braidwood Inn - Part 1 (Extended), Edelen's Braidwood Inn - Part 2 (Extended), Broke at Breakfast (Extended), 99 Bottles of Beer on the Bus (Deleted), The El Rancho Motel (Extended), and The Oshkonoggin Cheese Truck (Extended).
• NEW! Audition - Dylan Baker "Owen" (1080p upscaled, 3:34): Vintage audition footage in about the same quality as the deleted and extended scenes above.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Planes, Trains & Automobiles is such a wonderful little movie. It's a Comedy first and foremost, but there's an underlying element that makes it even better than the sum of its laughs: its heart. This is really the story of a developing friendship and not just a display of one misadventure after the other. It's about coming together, working through problems, and gaining an appreciation for and understanding of the needs of others. It's the perfect movie to watch on a down a day, a day when the world seems to be closing in, when hope seems distant, when the future looks bleak. It's a movie that doesn't hide the fact that life has its ups and downs, but it also serves as a reminder of how people must choose to make it through the tough times, to look on the bright side, to never lose site of the end goal, to find the silver lining in the darkest cloud, to anticipate the best even in the midst of the worst. That's its real strength, and there's nothing more noble than that. Paramount's new UHD is disappointing. Enough said. Skip it.