6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 3.2 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
In the aftermath of a massive earthquake in California, a rescue-chopper pilot makes a dangerous journey across the state in order to rescue his estranged daughter.
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Ioan Gruffudd, Archie PanjabiAction | 100% |
Adventure | 83% |
Thriller | 17% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: HEVC / H.265
Video resolution: 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
German: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH, French, German SDH, Portuguese, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
UV digital copy
4K Ultra HD
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The future is here! Warner Brothers has released its first wave of UHD Blu-ray (4K/3840x2160p resolution) discs. We've posted a companion article
detailing the UHD upgrade experience here. Watch for more reviews of WB's UHD Blu-rays in the coming days
and, of course, Blu-ray.com will be covering every UHD release in the future.
The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc. Watch for 4K screenshots at a later date.
According to IMDB, San Andreas was shot at 3.4K and finished at 2K,
presumably the source for this 4K UHD release.
Of the releases included in this first wave of UHD Blu-ray releases from Fox, Sony, and Warner Brothers, San Andreas has to be the most
frustrating of the bunch.
Whereas the best UHD releases so far, like Pineapple Express and The Smurfs 2, have demonstrated a pronounced refinement of their
wares and while others like Chappie have held firm with incremental, but obvious, improvement,
it's difficult to
really say which version of San Andreas just flat-out looks better. On the UHD/HDR release, colors aren't deeper or more refined.
Instead,
contrast simply seems heavily
altered. The 1080p Blu-ray looks creamy, while the UHD is much darker, offers much less color punch, and features a slightly warmer look to skin
tones. Shadow detail is improved on the UHD, and stands as probably the single biggest area of immediately noticeable improvement. Darker
background details are easier to see and distinguish without raising black levels. There's also a palpable flatness to the image. Switching between
any given scene yields the same results, whether in
Daniel Riddick's white-infused and sun-drenched home or amongst ravaged building interiors later on where only the natural light pouring in through
broken windows lights the frame.
What's also more disappointing, and equally confounding, is the decided lack of greatly, or even mildly, improved detail and texturing. Other digitally
sourced UHD
releases, even those supposedly finished in 2K and upconverted like Hitman: Agent 47, manage to reveal an immediately obvious boost in
raw detail even if differences are very subtle. Here, it's hard to find a detail that's noticeably more crisp. Not skin textures or droplets of water on
skin, not grime and wear, not the clean furniture lines in Riddick's home, not vegetation and grasses, not CGI buildings and shipwrecks. In fact,
there are times when, maybe due to the contrast and the 1080p Blu-ray's brighter image, details actually look a little firmer and more robust on the
old release. Maybe the single most
obvious improvements on the UHD come in the most extreme close-up shots. Skip ahead to chapter three and pause at the 18:56 mark, a shot
featuring Gaines looking at a text message on his phone. The improvements on both the case and his thumb are pretty striking, but such are the
serious exception to the rule.
The UHD essentially just looks like someone fiddled with the TV's settings. Knocking the contrast setting down about 30% seemed to
get the 1080p Blu-ray more in line with the UHD. The UHD looks great on its own merits, but there really doesn't seem to
be more than negligible-at-best improvements.
San Andreas' original Blu-ray release was reviewed without the ability to include coverage of the Dolby Atmos track, but things have
changed
since
then, and this review will factor in that part of the presentation.
Chaos. Whether controlled chaos, uncontrolled chaos, or somewhere in between, San Andreas tosses the audience right into total sonic
bedlam for each and every one of its prolific moments of destruction. Buildings collapse, helicopters crash, tidal waves spill into the listening area,
people scream, and so on and so forth. It's a laundry list of the most eardrum-punishing, speaker-testing, limit-pushing sounds, and each of them
are
presented with a distinct sense of purpose, a purpose that's meant to literally drop the listener right into the terrifying mayhem, to not just hear a
sound but almost literally feel a building careening down towards the head. Pretty much everything from the original soundtrack review,
which was written without the added height channels in consideration, holds true: the bass, the surround usage, the definition. The Atmos track
adds in another layer that helps create a more distinct sense of imminent
danger from all of those highlights listed above. The challenge it faces is that the soundtrack is already so busy, so aggressive, so demanding, so
bass-heavy,
that one wonders if it can successfully, not just adequately, add in enough discrete overhead effects to make a difference, or if it's just too darn loud to really make much beneficial use of it.
The answer is somewhere in the middle.
Of the admittedly limited Atmos soundtracks heretofore sampled, the best of them are able to create a specific sensation that stands a bit apart from
everything else. Other good height channel additions come in creating a fuller, richer, more noticeably immersive, essentially seamless sound not
only at 360 degrees but above the listener as well. But when the speakers are
literally being pushed about as hard as a movie will ever push them, the sub is thumping, and eardrums are screaming for mercy, is there really any
room to feel, and more importantly appreciate, a more aggressively immersive listen? Rarely. San Andreas is just too
much of an assault on the senses that even
those
moments where the height speakers engage, they just become another sound source added to an already punishing experience. Collapsing buildings
and all of the movie's thunderous highlights remain prodigious, and the sense of immersion in the madness is subjectively a little more palpable.
But most the track's best uses of the Atmos configuration come in quieter moments where, rather than large sections of concrete collapsing or
huge waves of ocean crashing, the little things make a difference, little things like bits of dusty debris dropping from the ceiling or water dripping off
a
surface. Perhaps the best "overhead" sound effect comes after Gaines' chopper crashes into the strip mall. Oil leaks from overhead, and it literally
sounds like it's plopping right into the middle of the listening area. Indeed, the track's ability to better differentiate its overhead sounds when they
have room to actually make an individual audible impact are
more welcome and pronounced than when the soundstage is already overwhelmed. Of course, that could be trained bias speaking, where the ears
are simply more in-tune with picking up movie soundtrack sounds that emanate from front and behind rather than above. With more height channel
soundtracks on the market, chances are in the future their absence will feel just as empty as listening to a two-channel track does today.
San Andreas contains no supplemental content on the UHD disc. The Included 1080p Blu-ray disc carries all of the extras. For a review, please click here. A UV digital copy code is included with purchase.
San Andreas is arguably the quintessential modern Disaster movie and a hallmark of modern digital effects. Its UHD release, however, is really quite confounding. It looks fine on its own accord, but there's practically no serious, or even incremental, boost in detail or clarity and colors seem only a turn of the contrast knob different from the Blu-ray. Don't mistake the 3.5 video score for a mediocre, fledgeling, or bad UHD transfer. The movie still looks sharp, well defined, and colorful. It just doesn't appear to be a large enough step above the Blu-ray to make a difference. It's more like a lateral move with an incremental forward movement in the same motion.
Instawatch
2015
Folded Mini Poster
2015
2015
with Ready Player One Movie Money
2015
Collectible Movie Card Included
2015
2015
2015
Lenticular Slipcover / Bonus Content
2015
2015
2015
2015
2009
2015
2004
2014
2013
2020
2011
2016
2018
20th Anniversary Edition
1996
2006
2015
Director's Cut
2009
2014
2012
2018
2018
2012
2017
2023