Eddie the Eagle 4K 2016 Ultra HD 2160p REMUX

The story of Great Britain's first ski jumper to enter the Winter Olympics.

Eddie the Eagle 4K 2016 Ultra HD 2160p REMUX Review
Eddie the Eagle 4K is presented on 4K UHD with an HEVC / H.265 encoded 2160p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb kind of weirdly omits data on what resolution the digital intermediate was finished in, though several other online sources posit it at 2K, despite at least some of the film having been digitally captured at 6K. What this means in "tangible" terms is that while the 4K UHD disc definitely displays a noticeable uptick in detail levels and some arguably minor but still increased nuance in tonal varieties, the change here is not as dramatic as some might expect (or at least hope). The nicest upgrades here are "textural", where elements like the rubbery quality of some of the spandex or less "glamorous" costuming like sweaters or jeans display an almost palpable quality that, while present in the 1080p Blu-ray presentation, is not as pronounced. The increase in detail levels does not port over to some of the SFX sequences (some of which were reportedly done at 2K, which may help to explain this anomaly at least in part). What were assumedly green screen sequences like some of the jump material have a rather diffused, gauzy quality that is not significantly altered from the 1080p Blu-ray version. There are also occasional issues with my "traditional" bugaboo judder, which is rather pronounced at times, especially in some of the slower pans. Some other intermittent image instability tiptoes right up to aliasing, tending to crop up on a number of edges and patterns (look for example at elements like the corrugated roof of the shed at the bottom of one of the ski runs). The bottom line is, while this is a generally agreeable presentation, it's not a "knock your socks off" video experience and early adopters of this format may want to spend their hard earned cash on other, more visually splendid, offerings.

Eddie the Eagle 4K ostensibly upgrades the 1080p Blu-ray's DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix to a full scale Dolby Atmos mix (with a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 core), but the results are a bit like the video presentation: occasionally awesome but not that substantially different from the first version. Part of what keeps the sonic ambience tamped down here is that the surrounds are generally employed most forcefully for the jump sequences, and there simply aren't that many of them in this film, despite its perceived subject matter. During the big set pieces, there's some appealing ambience due to both crowd noises and general environmental sounds, but overall this is a fairly "talky" picture that simply doesn't afford consistent opportunities for the kind of pinpoint placement of effects that is Atmos' sonic calling card. Fidelity is superb throughout, with smart prioritization and decent if not overwhelming dynamic range.