The Meg 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Meg 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Same Fish Story, but Brighter

Having already catalogued the derivative silliness, entertainment value and violations of logic in Warner's The Meg, I will not repeat that discussion here. The interested reader may consult the Blu-ray review for my take on the film, which falls somewhere between those of my colleagues Brian Orndorf and Josh Katz (though I obviously lean more in Brian's direction on this one). The headline on the UHD is that it fulfills the promise of Warner's current superhero-heavy promo for the format, which is to make everything brighter and more colorful.

The Meg 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

(Note: Screenshots accompanying this review have been captured from the standard Blu-ray. Additional 1080p captures from that disc can be found here.)

The HDR colorist really went to town on Warner's 2160p, HEVC/H.265-encoded UHD of The Meg, brightening the image throughout and selectively enhancing the contrast so that the disc provides a shining example of the 4K virtues promised in Warner's promos for the format. Whether or not this is the lighting that cinematographer Tom Stern intended, it certainly fits with the film's general approach, which, as I noted in the 1080p Blu-ray review, is anything but subtle. Whether it's the interiors of the submersibles; the hallways, sick bays and massive computerized control rooms of Mana One; the rolling seas, both on deck and in the water; or even the underwater depths, where little light should be penetrating, The Meg in 4K is a brighter and more contrast-y affair, delivering both CG and practical eye candy with an intensity for which the 1080p disc doesn't even try.

The disc's biggest and brightest showpiece is the grand finale at China's Sanya Bay, where both the beach and the ocean are crowded with vacationing revelers in vividly colored swim gear and the largest collection of fluorescent flotation devices this side of Miami Beach. Unlike the 1080p disc, where these long shots filled with tiny figures tend to go fuzzy and indistinct, the 4K disc makes each one seem to pop out of the frame, a product of up-rezzing from the 2K DI, less stingy compression and the additional HDR intensity. Even the whites of the bridal gown on the shipboard wedding are whiter, and the blacks of the men's tuxedos are a little darker, despite the sunlight. The overall effect is to make the human buffet set out for the giant shark's dining pleasure look all the more enticing—and exposed.

(The disc also offers Dolby Vision encoding, which will be the subject of a separate review.)

[System calibrated for UHD using (a) a Klein K-10A Colorimeter with a Custom Profile made in CalMAN using a Colorimetry Research CR250 Spectroradiometer; (b) Murideo Fresco SIX-G UHD signal generator with HDR10 and Dolby Vision capability; and (c) SpectraCal CalMAN Software v. 5.8.2.85. Calibration performed by Kevin Miller of ISFTV.]

The Meg 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Warner's practice that I have dubbed "Stupid Disc Authoring" (SDA™) continues with The Meg's UHD disc, which, like the standard Blu-ray, defaults to a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track instead of the superior Dolby Atmos. Be sure to select the latter, which is discussed here.

The Meg 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The UHD disc has no extras. The accompanying standard Blu-ray has the extras previously reviewed.

The Meg 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I haven't yet seen the 3D presentation of The Meg, which seems to be arriving sporadically, depending on which of at least three different variants one is expecting. (Best Buy's exclusive appears to be the most readily available at the moment.) With that caveat, I can say that the UHD version is by far the better of the two versions I've viewed. Even if it's just an upscale from a 2K source, the brightness of its HDR grading suits the film, and the format's greater bandwidth requirements have prevented the severe overcompression that mars the 1080p Blu-ray. Recommended.