The Shape of Water 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.5

The Shape of Water 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Perhaps appropriately for a film that so prominently features a cleaning woman, The Shape of Water cleaned up at the Academy Awards a couple of weeks ago, winning Best Picture and getting Guillermo del Toro a Best Director statuette. The film is a riot of stylistic whimsy, production design excellence, and cinematography bells and whistles that would seem to make it an ideal candidate for 4K UHD treatment.

The Shape of Water 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray.

The Shape of Water is presented on 4K UHD courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with a 2160p transfer in 1.85:1. As with many other films digitally captured and then finished at a 2K DI, this 4K version shows at times considerable upticks in fine detail levels on things like fabrics in costumes and upholstery, while also adding a perhaps more subtle texturization to "smoother" elements like the Creature's exoskeleton. What struck me more about this presentation than the (perhaps expected) changes in detail levels was the interesting tweaking of the palette courtesy of HDR. I actually assumed things would take on even more of a teal or aquamarine tint in the green grades utilized throughout the film, but I was kind of surprised to see what I would term more of a "true" or "natural" green emerging, including in admittedly minor things like the color of the credits. But throughout the film, hues which in the 1080p version tended to be in the teal range looked either skewed more towards green (as in the lime colored men's room) or actually blue (as in Strickland's prized Cadillac) in the 4K version. Some of the most noticeable changes to my eyes were actually in the warmer graded moments in the apartments, which are often bathed in a kind of amber color. Here there's a noticeably more suffused yellowish undertone that gives things a kind of almost elegiac feeling. Shadow definition was surprisingly strong on the 1080p Blu-ray, especially given the surplus of underwater imagery and other dimly lit material, and it continues to be excellent in this 4K version, though I'd be hard pressed to say it's substantially improved in this version. As I mentioned in the review of the 1080p Blu-ray, there are a couple of moments of water imagery with backlighting, including the film's final fade out, that seem to flirt ever so slightly with banding, though in the case of the final fade, I'm of the opinion it's a deliberate tweaking of the imagery.

The Shape of Water 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 4K UHD disc contains the same effective DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track assessed in our The Shape of Water Blu-ray review.

Note: As tends to be the case with Fox releases, the audio and subtitle specs are different on the 4K UHD and 1080p Blu-ray discs. The specs above are for the 4K UHD disc. For the specs on the 1080p Blu-ray, please consult that review.

The Shape of Water 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Fox is kind of falling by the wayside all of a sudden in terms of porting over supplements from the 1080p Blu-ray discs to the 4K UHD versions. Once again, Fox has not provided any supplements on the 4K UHD disc, though the 1080p Blu-ray disc also included in this package of course includes all the supplements detailed in our The Shape of Water Blu-ray review.

The Shape of Water 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I have to say after having now seen The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, I personally would have given the Best Actress Academy Award to Sally Hawkins, for her almost totally wordless performance is an exercise in emotion delivered almost entirely by body language. The film is just a remarkable blend of fantasy and stylized "reality", and the love story at its core is ultimately unexpectedly moving. It's a little disappointing that Fox hasn't included an Atmos or DTS:X track here, nor has it provided any of the supplements available on the 1080p Blu-ray, so those aspects should be taken into consideration. But the film itself is a marvel, and the 4K presentation is excellent. Highly recommended.