Mortal Kombat (2021) 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review: The Basics
SCREENSHOTS FROM RESTRICTED TRAILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBa_aHwCbC4
DISCLAIMER
Mortal Kombat (2021) 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray was sent to us by Warner Bros. The opinions in this review are my own.
Mortal Kombat 4K Blu-ray
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
Warner Bros. | 2021 | 110 min | Rated R | Jul 13, 2021
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
English: Dolby Atmos
French (Canadian): Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles
English SDH, French (Canadian), Spanish
Discs
4K Ultra HD
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1x 4KUHD, 1x BD)
UPC 883929726660
Story: The Basics
Hunted by the fearsome warrior Sub-Zero, MMA fighter Cole Young finds sanctuary at the temple of Lord Raiden. Training with experienced fighters Liu Kang, Kung Lao and the rogue mercenary Kano, Cole prepares to stand with Earth's greatest champions to take on the enemies from Outworld in a high-stakes battle for the universe.
Director: Simon McQuoid
Writers: Dave Callaham, Oren Uziel, Ed Boon, John Tobias
Starring: Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, Tadanobu Asano, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Lewis Tan
Mortal Kombat (2021) Official Trailer
Video: The Basics
Like many Warner Bros releases lately, it Premiered on HBO Max. Oddly enough, most movies that came from HBO Max first have looked poor on 4K UHD. Does this trend continue? Let's see.
The transfer for Mortal Kombat on 4K Ultra HD is not good. The first thing that is obvious the added edge enhancement. If you've read my previous reviews then you know I really dislike it when companies do this. It's been done because the source format is a 2KDI. This makes the resolution basically look like Blu-ray, which is 1080p. They have attempted to add sharpness to try and overcome this issue, and it just makes the image look poor, IMO. If you respect video quality, never add sharpness. That's just my two cents.
There is heavy ringing around objects because they've upscaled a 2K image to 4K. Whoever is upscaling the image for WB isn't doing a good job IMO. The ringing is obvious, and it looks poor, plain, and simple.
These are two things for image quality that I find unacceptable, and I'll be complaining to Warner Bros about this. Edge enhancement cannot be used to this effect and the way they upscale images to 4K. Scaling causes ringing to be emphasized, but this is very heavy.
HDR is almost non-existent! It set to a 1000 nit wrapper, but the average nits are around 150? Thats what it looked like to me, let me know if I'm wrong. This is basically SDR and it simply looks poor. There's never a point where I thought it looked "4K" so to speak, and had a 4K pop.
Black levels...Oh boy...Where to start. There's zero deep blacks in this movie, they're all raised. Because this was meant to be streamed? Because it was made for HBO Max first? Or real design choice? I don't know, but the blacks are raised and by quite a bit. This absolutely crushes the dynamic range in the image. What happened here? Did the production team just take the weekend off or what? It's poor all around IMO.
Film grain? I couldn't tell if it was noise or film grain, I'm serious I couldn't tell.
Overall? A poor-looking movie on 4K, plagued by design choice and poor encoding. If any 4K encoders are reading this, never add edge, and 4K needs a minimum of 84-ish-Mbps, end of story. Warner Bros, this is a disappointment.
I complain because I care about good video quality, and this is far from it.
VIDEO SCORE: 2.5 OUT OF 5
THE BASICS: IT DOES EVERYTHING WRONG
Audio: The Basics
The audio performs a 180 compared to the video. The sound is Dolby Atmos and sounds very good. It has one tell-tail issue because it's come from HBO Max that all HBO Max 4K's have. I'll explain later.
Dialogue volume is balanced well after making some adjustments. So, all HBO Max movies have a -4db volume issue. I've watched them all, and they all have this issue. It cannot be a coincidence. With that said, after correcting for the -4db loss it sounded perfectly balanced. Dialogue is clear and sounds good.
The use of Dolby Atmos and space is excellent. Sounds move through my room, above me, and around me, it's very good. Small effects like snow and ice cracking can be heard fully in the height channels. Let me tell ya, this is a good surround sound mix.
Let's talk bass because this movie has HUGE BASS! Every fight scene has huge bass. Honestly, it's right on the edge for me, and it goes low, super low. I have 2 subs, and this movie may need 3 or 4 to get the most out of it. Chest thumps, punches, feet pounding, it has it all. It's very good. If you want to hear bass then you simply need to hear this movie. I've heard the compressed HBO Max stream was really bad, but this uncompressed version is excellent.
I'd like to talk about the -4db issue a little. I had to raise the volume 4db. This puts the volume of voices at the correct level. However, this could be the reason that the bass is on the high end. Why was this done? I think it was done because of HBO Max. Lowering the high end and keeping the bass lowers the dynamic headroom, and bass still has huge impact. I think this is the case for movies that are streamed, and they've kept the same mix. This is my only concern for the mix and isn't perfect because of this.
AUDIO SCORE: 4.5 OUT OF 5
THE BASICS: VERY GOOD / -4DB VOLUME ISSUE
HOW I REVIEW THE BASICS
REVIEW SCORES
2 - POOR
3 - AVERAGE
4 - GOOD
5 - EXCELLENT
5 - REFERENCE
EQUIPMENT I USE TO REVIEW
- POWER CONDITIONER - FURMAN ELITE-15 PF I
- DENON - X6500H (DOLBY ATMOS, DTSX, AND AURO 3D)
- ELAC - UNI-FI FLOORSTANDERS UF51
- ELAC - UNI-FI BOOKSHELF UB51 (INCLUDING DOLBY ATMOS)
- ELAC - UNI-FI CENTER SPEAKER UC51
- ELAC - TWO SUB3030 SUBWOOFERS
- PANASONIC - UB9000 4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY PLAYER
- LG - C9 77 INCH - (ISF CALIBRATED - DOLBY VISION)
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