The Batman - 4K UHD: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray + Blu-ray

Product Information

Enter our competition to win a copy of WARNER BROS. 100th ANNIVERSARY 30-FILM STUDIO COLLECTION on 4K UHD Batman is a visually arresting film, combining reserved, yet colorful, scenes and elements of spectacle against shadowy, gothic, noir-inspired cinematography, and total production workmanship. The story plays complimentary to the aesthetics, the acting is first-rate, and there's an interesting Shadows of the Bat – A feature-length documentary, split into three parts, that covers the making of the film. The Batman storms onto 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray with an often stunning albeit very dark native 4K 2160p Dolby Vision transfer. I mean, this is a Batman movie - it’s going to be dark but this film took that to a whole new level with some beautiful cinematography by Greig Fraser. The film is steeped in shadows - even when it’s daylight there are dark ominous shadows for any character to lurk in and it’s glorious. Details are pristine allowing you to fully take in facial features (lighting contingent), the Penguin’s extensive makeup effects, and costume textures. Looking closely I love the details in Batman’s skull-like cowl from the individual stitching to the scrapes and scuffs he’s taken from close-quarters combat. You can also fully appreciate the practical and CGI elements employed to create this new Gotham City with London, Chicago, Liverpool, and Glasgow locations used to create thecity.

place in Wayne Manor. The warm woods and natural lighting during the day contribute to a healthy skin glow on the UHD whereas the older Blu-ray this one of the best UHD releases yet and a must-own disc. About the only part of this release (and the others in this series) that's awful is the box No Batman film is complete without a Gordon to work with. This time we’re treated to Jeffrey Wright as Lt. Gordon. He’s an early friend of Batman regularly working with him and consulting on cases, but Batman hasn’t won over all of the cops in the city. The corrupt have reason to fear him but the honest cops still don’t know what to make of this vigilante. Wright's Gordon has to walk that thin line of trust between turning to a masked crime fighter and working with his brothers in blue. Shadows of the Bat– Much to my sincere delight, this was a lot more and wasn’t made at the time but rather a documentary that covered many bases and had the majority of players involved and all shared some great stuff throughout along with a few outside things this viewer didn’t know at the start of the evolution of its big screen.solidifies the textural might that comes thanks to the exacting source and thorough work performed to bring the movie as close to visual perfection as

The included screenshots are sourced from the included remastered 1080p Blu-ray disc. Watch for 4K screenshots at a later date. The Batman was captured digitally in a variety of formats (at 4.5 and 6K) by cinematographer Greig Fraser ( Dune, Rogue One, Zero Dark Thirty) using Arri Alexa LF, Mini LF, and Sony CineAlta Venice cameras with a host of Arri, Cook, and Canon anamorphic lenses. The film was finished as a native 4K Digital Intermediate at the 2.39:1 aspect ratio. For its release on Ultra HD, that source has been graded for high dynamic range (both Dolby Vision and HDR10 options are included). The result is a highly cinematic yet moody image, definitely one that lives and breathes in the darkness. So it’s truly surprising how much detail is visible in the 4K presentation—a genuine credit to Frasier’s photography. The HDR adds pleasing subtleties to the color palette, and strongly benefits both shadows and brightly-bold highlights alike, resulting in a remarkably deep and dimensional looking image. And those with Dolby Vision capable displays will be glad to have them. Simply put, this is a gorgeous and beautifully-textured presentation, delivered in reference-quality 4K. detailed, full and deep without crushing detail. Shadowy city exteriors -- much of the first act, really -- are a treat, and combined with the first-class Stylistically, The Batman has its roots in the New Hollywood films of the 1960s and 70s, Taxi Driver among them, and it gives Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy a run for its money in terms of darkness and grit. (Though in fairness, Nolan’s films were about grounding Batman in the real world, while Reeves works more to capture the darkness of society’s underbelly.) The Batman borrows obvious story elements from The Long Halloween and Dark Victory graphic novels, the former of which was already referenced in Nolan’s The Dark Knight (particularly with regard to the character of Harvey Dent), though Reeves supplants the killer in that story for the Riddler while drawing heavily upon Selina Kyle’s narrative. The director’s faith in Robert Pattinson’s ability to wear the cape and cowl was likely justified by his work in The Rover, Cosmopolis, and The Lighthouse, and the actor was certainly the right choice, though his take on Bruce Wayne would have benefited from more screen time to develop the character’s relationship with Alfred (Andy Serkis). impressively defined full-stage crashing effects where crunching metal and spilling items are a result of the high-speed maneuvers. The Batmobile'smovie's handsome definition, crisp lines, and perfectly detailed characters and locations. It's of natural film quality through-and-through. The image is Storyboard Sequence– We’d have to wait until Batman Forever to meet Robin, but there was an early sequence featuring him here. In all, the content adds up to nearly two hours worth of material and it’s all refreshing, not quite in-depth yet still interesting because each piece is focused—getting right to the heart of the film’s concepts. There are featurettes on the fight choreography and its in-universe thematic origins, as well as the casting of the lead actors (and the hiring of Giacchino). Each member of the Rogues Gallery and their unique motivations is explored in dedicated segments. Batman’s new ride and its insane/bespoke engineering is examined, as are a couple of the key action set pieces, and each character’s iconic costume and equipment. The best of the lot is Vengeance in the Making, which is a thoughtful 53-minute “making of” documentary that examines the actual production effort. It starts with the first day of filming, including camera tests of the actors in their costumes, then takes us behind the scenes. We learn about the origins of the film and Reeves’ involvement, the various sources of inspiration he drew upon, the way the director and his team have justified their choices and reenvisioned the characters, and the effort though which they’ve tried to present a new cinematic take on the material. Everyone you’d wish to hear from gets a chance to speak and share their insights. And we see the filmmakers struggling with COVID production shutdowns too, which made an already difficult task almost Herculean. The disc also includes a pair of good deleted scenes, one featuring Barry Keoghan as Joker and the other an extra bit of character-building with Penguin in the nightclub. What’s great here is that there’s no fluff, no filler, no marketing pablum. It would be nice to have galleries of concept artwork, but you do get to see lots of that art in the featurettes. Trailers and an audio commentary would have elevated these extras to the next level (Reeves does comment on the deleted scenes), but make no mistake—this is very good special feature content. And of course, you also get a Digital Copy code on a paper insert. [Editor’s Note: There IS a director’s commentary available, though irritatingly it’s only on the iTunes Digital version.]

and chemicals spill from broken vats with superior placement and movement. A car chase in chapter 22 offers more of the same, with some Two years of stalking the night streets of Gotham as the Batman (Robert Pattinson) and Bruce Wayne is no closer to his goal of deterring crime. Murder and mayhem are at record highs before Gotham’s mayoral election. The city is turned upside down when the sitting mayor is murdered in his home by a criminal called the Riddler (Paul Dano) who leaves provocative clues and letters for the Batman to solve. With the heart of the city’s rampant corruption pointing towards Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) and his right hand Oswald “The Penguin” (Colin Farrell), Batman will turn to cat burglar Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz) and Lt. Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) to stop the Riddler’s sinister plot. dichotomy between light and dark, with the villain taking on the outward characteristics of the former and the hero the outward -- and also in many ways inward -- characteristics of the latter. Keaton and Nicholson play very well against one another and the film is full of terrific support performances broad structural improvements and smaller adjustments that make the UHD in particular a masterwork of home video picture authoring and easily theConsidering the near-three-hour runtime, I appreciate Warner Bros slipping the bonus features onto a separate disc. Neither the 4K Disc nor the 1080p Disc has any bonus features. What we get here is a collection of small featurettes focusing on small individual pieces of the production with a nice large making-of documentary Vengeance in the Making that aims for a much bigger picture overview of the making of the film. There are only two deleted scenes with optional commentary with Matt Reeves, one is the already widely seen deleted Joker scene and another brief but interesting interaction with Selina and Penguin - not essential to the show, and while a cool scene, I’m glad they dropped the Joker scene. It was too much and very on the nose almost pulling word-for-word from Manhunter. movie while maintaining the darker noir-inspired tones, even in relatively well-lit locales such as these. One of the key color highlights comes in and photography. Warner Brothers' previously issued VC-1 Blu-ray still holds up today as a well-rounded 1080p presentation, but both this 2160p/HDR Beyond Batman– A series of several short featurettes that cover all the aspects of the film from costumes, set design and various other things associated with the film.