Aladdin 4K Blu-ray Digital

Aladdin 4K

 (2019)

Aladdin 4K Blu-ray delivers stunning video and audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
A street rat frees a genie from a lamp, granting all of his wishes and transforming himself into a charming prince in order to marry a beautiful princess. But soon, an evil sorcerer becomes hell-bent on securing the lamp for his own sinister purposes.


For more about Aladdin 4K and the Aladdin 4K Blu-ray release, see Aladdin 4K Blu-ray Review published by Martin Liebman on September 1, 2019 where this Blu-ray release scored 4.0 out of 5.

Director: Guy Ritchie
Writers: John August, Guy Ritchie
Starring: Will Smith, Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott, Marwan Kenzari, Navid Negahban, Nasim Pedrad
Producer: Dan Lin

» See full cast & crew

Aladdin 4K Blu-ray, Video Quality

      

1080p

   

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc.

Aladdin's 2160p/HDR UHD, framed at 2.39:1, is something akin to a nuts-and-bolts presentation for the format. It offers the obligatory light textural upgrades, modest improvements to sharpness, and general deepening (and darkening) of the color palette by way of the HDR color parameters. Genie blue displays with firmer, darker, more robust and intense blue, solidifying the color that on Blu-ray appears comparatively light and Smurf-y. Various jewels and some of the gold magical dust that floats around Genie appears shiner, more colorfully robust, more sparkly. Bright light sources appear more brilliant without pushing overly intense. Daytime and well-lit scenes enjoy a fairly strong push towards greater color solidification, even if the picture appears a bit darker overall.

Textural increases are modest, but appreciable. Close-ups reveal finer clothing and skin textures, not to any extreme extent but playing around with the added resolution to squeeze out just a little more total clarity and sharpness that the 1080p image cannot quite match. Finer pore details, more clearly dense hairs, and more resplendent jewels and fabrics bear the fruits in close-up. Even digital constructs enjoy improved clarity. The differences here are not drastic on either end. The HDR squeezes out a little more color depth and punch to sure up the movie's most critical hues while improvements to textures and total sharpness are slight but nevertheless critical. This is a good UHD, nothing out of the ordinary but a solid image on its own and a nice little boost next to the Blu-ray.

Aladdin 4K Blu-ray, Audio Quality

   

Aladdin's UHD Dolby Atmos soundtrack isn't wholly dissimilar from the Blu-ray's DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless soundtrack. It requires that all-but-obligatory upward volume knob movement from calibrated reference listening levels; it's hushed and timid without turning it up. The good news is that once it's there it's a full, potent soundtrack. If there's a reservedness to the bass it's not anywhere near as immediately obvious as some of the studio's other "neutered" tracks. It's surprisingly full and engaging at the low end, and there is plenty of opportunity through both song and sound effects for the subwoofer to participate, and participate it does. Musical engagement is of particular note; it's diffuse throughout the stage, offering large front end presence, bombarding but attuned surround integration, and a hearty low end compliment. Ditto effects. The film employs several scenes which stretch the stage and the subwoofer both, fully drawing the listener into a veritable maelstrom of sound that might not quite reach the pinnacle of sonic clarity and lifelike transparency (it's a Fantasy film after all, though) but with enough core clarity to carry the bellicose effects and chaotic immersion. The Atmos configuration folds in the overhead channels as necessary -- which is rather consistently -- with well defined support elements and a few more discrete details that see the presentation pull away from the DTS track. It's an engaging, exciting, borderline exacting listen. Perfectly executed dialogue rounds the track into winning form.