Space Jam (1996) 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review: The Basics
SCREENSHOTS FROM THE TRAILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v98aXG562h4
DISCLAIMER
Space Jam (1996) 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray was sent to us by Warner Bros. The opinions in this review are my own.
Space Jam 4K Blu-ray
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
Warner Bros. | 1996 | 88 min | Rated PG | Jul 06, 2021
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
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 883929683864
Story: The Basics
The Nerdlucks, a gang of space creatures, have been dispatched by their boss to kidnap Bugs Bunny and his Looney Tunes cohorts. Bugs challenges the aliens to a basketball tournament: if the Looney Tunes win, they'll remain on Earth. Bugs knows he needs some serious help, but basketball's best players are all having their skills "absorbed" by the aliens. Of course, there's a baseball player he happens to know...
Director: Joe Pytka
Writers: Timothy Harris, Herschel Weingrod, Leo Benvenuti, Steve Rudnick
Starring: Michael Jordan, Wayne Knight, Theresa Randle, Manner Washington, Eric Gordon, Penny Bae Bridges
Space Jam (1996) Official Trailer
Video: The Basics
I watched Space Jam back in the DVD/LaserDisc days, and I thought it looked really good back then. The 4K is supremely better, and it's surprising how good they got this looking. Let's take a deeper look.
Right from the start, the colors are excellent, and it's been graded very well IMO. Black level detail is also very good, the blacks are raised, looking a little like old film. I like this look, and there's obviously no blacks crushed, good stuff.
Resolution and sharpness are inconsistent, with some soft shots and some highly detailed shots. The differences are quite contrasting. So, the detail is excellent on close-up film shots and soft for the animated shots. This is understandable, even today's specials effects can be obvious without Avatar-style budgets. One thing that they did not do, and I'm proud of them for doing this is add sharpness to the soft shots. Some companies still over sharpen, Warner Bros has let the 4K scan do its work, this is how it should be done. Great work.
Let's talk a little about ringing and color bleed. There's minor ringing around hard objects, I think this looks fine. Because they didn't add any sharpness this keeps the ringing smooth-looking. This is very good. One thing that is a little off-putting is the color bleeding that happens in some of the animated scenes. I don't think this looks that great, I don't really see why there was color bleeding. This was 1996, we'd had Jurassic Park already so I don't see why this was an issue even for back then.
Now onto the encode. It's not bad, not bad at all, leaning towards very good. So, some of the animated shots have either heavy noise in them or artifacts. I don't think they look very good at all. This is where it becomes a little difficult to grade this movie because 85% of the movie is honestly excellent. I saw a few people online posting screenshots and it's even visible in still images. The bit-rate is relatively good, between the 70s, 80s, and peaking at 90 Mbps. This is good. The average looks to be around the 80s from what I saw. I would have liked more, averaging in the 90s and peaking in the 100s would have been more my style. It's not perfect, but honestly, overall it's a good-looking disc and I think that they've done a good job with this movie.
One other thing is that there's some noise/film grain that appears around actors, but not around the animated characters. Small things like this might not annoy most people, but I tend to pick up on the smallest of things.
Overall? Yeah, a job well done. A good-looking transfer, forgive a few animated noisy scenes. It has some inconsistency and soft shot issues also, but still, has great color and overall looks good. Consistency is actually the biggest issue, but I think it's forgivable given the style of the movie. If you're a fan of Space Jam then this is a must-own disc on 4K.
VIDEO SCORE: 4.25 OUT OF 5
THE BASICS: GOOD LOOKING BUT HAS CONSISTENCY ISSUES
Audio: The Basics
Space Jam 4K has been upgraded to Dolby Atmos and I can safely say that this upgrade is dynamite!
Dialogue is clear, well-balanced, and mixed very nicely. I can't ask any more from this, so bigs thumbs up from me.
The use of surround sound and Dolby Atmos height channels is excellent. Sounds bounce and flying around the entire soundstage. Ohh, this a good-sounding disc! It reminds me of Casper back in the day. That mix was incredible too, I think they were just Dolby surround mixes at the time. This is a really great Atmos upgrade, well done.
There's some bass punch too, it's not modern-day movie bass, but very good.
The music in this movie is really good too, I enjoyed hearing all the old songs again.
Overall? Very good Atmos mix, and an awesome upgrade. I recommend hearing this new mix.
AUDIO SCORE: 4.5 OUT OF 5
THE BASICS: GREAT ATMOS UPGRADE
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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