Blade 4K review

Dec 04, 2020- Permalink

Warner Brothers has now given 1998’s Blade, which stars Wesley Snipes, the 4K treatment. The gang over at WBHE sent me a copy to review but rest assured, the thoughts and opinions below are my own.

The HEVC / H.265 encoded native 4K 2160p transfer has HDR10 and appears in the theatrical release’s 2.39:1 aspect ratio. The image packs a lot of detail, from Snipes’ leather jacket, to facial features and set environments. The HDR helps the colour palette a lot. Though there’s a lot in this film with a steel-grey hue, colours like blood reds, neon signs, and sunlight really pop. The black levels are deep and there’s detail and only occasional crush in the darkest scenes. My complaint would be in the amount of digital noise reduction used on this transfer and purists will be annoyed by the smoothness of the visuals. Also, some of the digital effects haven’t aged so well. Though an improvement from the 2012 Blu-ray, this is a very good but not reference level transfer.

On the audio side, this release of Blade has been upgraded with an English Dolby Atmos track as well as an English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 track, French, German, Polish, and Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks and Spanish and Czech Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks. Subtitles are available in English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Japanese, Spanish, Czech, and Polish. The Atmos soundtrack is a welcome addition to this release and the height speakers are put to good use in many scenes. The rest of your surround system will immerse you in the action so much that you might want to wear garlic to protect yourself from the vampires. Dialogue is clear, though there does appear to be a source issue where some lines have a bit of distortion. A very good audio presentation.

The Blade 4K set comes with a Blu-ray copy and a digital code. The special features are on the Blu-ray, but the audio commentaries appear on both discs. The first audio commentary features actors Wesley Snipes and Steven Dorff, cinematographer Theo van de Sande, screenwriter David S. Goyer, producer Peter Frankfurt, and production designer Kirk M. Petruccelli. The second commentary is an isolated score commentary by composer Mark Isham. There’s interviews with the production team on the film’s genesis, a look at the production design, a discussion with Stan Lee and others about the evolution of darker-themed antihereoes, a look at blood in theology, lore, and mythology, and a theatrical trailer.

The Blade 4K updates a good antihero story anchored by Wesley Snipes. With a pretty good video presentation, an excellent audio presentation, and a nice selection of extras, this release is an upgrade over previous Blade home entertainment releases and a recommended disc for fans of the film.