Transformers: Rise of the Beasts 4K SteelBook review

Oct 01, 2023- Permalink

Studios like to milk their intellectual property dry and the Transformers franchise is no different. Since Transformers was released in 2007, it has spawned four sequels and a prequel film, Bumblebee. The latest entry, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, has its timeline squished between Bumblebee and Transformers. In this iteration, Optimus Prime and the Autobots must battle Unicron and the Terrorcons with help from the Maximals, who are beast mode Transformers. (Not a sentence I type often.) The various Transformers are voiced by Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Pete Davidson, Liza Koshy, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Colman Domingo, Cristo Fernández, Tongayi Chirisa, Peter Cullen, John DiMaggio, and David Sobolov. while the humans – who are really just sidebars to the plot – are led by Dominique Fishback, Anthony Ramos, and Dean Scott Vazquez. While Bumblebee tried to take the franchise in a more “emotional” direction, Steven Caple Jr.’s entry heads back to the more bombastic Micheal Bay style of Transformers flicks. Plot has always taken a back seat to boom and smash in these films, so if that’s your cup of tea, you’ll be happy to know that Paramount has released a 4K SteelBook of the movie. I had a chance to take a look.

The 2160p HEVC / H.265 encoded native 4K digital transfer with Dolby Vision and HDR10 is presented in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. What it lacks in story depth, it makes up in looks. It’s an excellent video presentation with great detail and clarity in both real and computer-generated elements. The colour palette ranges from popping colours on clothing to lush jungle fauna. The black levels are deep and there’s no loss of detail in the shadows and darker scenes. There are no encode issues to speak of and all in all it’s a really good looking presentation.

On the audio side of things, you have the choice of English and French Dolby Atmos soundtracks that fold back to Dolby TrueHD 7.1. There are also Spanish (España and Latinoamérica) and French (Canadian) Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. Subtitles are available for English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish. The soundscape is fully explored, with explosions, scraping metal, clanks and whirs moving throughout the surrounds and height channels while the subwoofer doesn’t get a chance to relax either. Dialogue is clear and centred. It’s a fun track.

The Transformers: Rise of the Beasts 4K SteelBook also comes with a Blu-ray copy of the film as well as a digital code. Extras include featurettes with cast and crew discussing the franchise, 90s production design, the heroes and villains, a look at some of the sequences and locations, as well as deleted and extended scenes. The collectible SteelBook case has a painting of Optimus Prime on the front, a painting of Optimus Primal on the back, the inner panel shows the Maximals on the left and the Autobots on the right.

Fans of the franchise who are also collectors of SteelBooks will be interested in the Transformers: Rise of the Beasts 4K SteelBook, with its excellent audio and video presentations and nice-looking case. A non-SteelBook version is also available for those who don’t care about SteelBooks.