Godzilla Vs. Kong 4K Ultra HD

In "Godzilla Vs. Kong," Kong and his protectors undertake a perilous journey to find his true home, and with them is Jia, a young orphaned girl with whom he has formed a unique and powerful bond. But they unexpectedly find themselves in the path of an enraged Godzilla, cutting a swath of destruction across the globe. The epic clash between the two titans––instigated by unseen forces—is only the beginning of the mystery that lies deep within the core of the Earth. (Gary Reber)

Special features include commentary by Director Adam Wingard; 10 featurettes: "Kong Discovers Hollow Earth" (HD 07:53), "Kong Leaves Home" (HD 07:56), "Behold Kong's Temple" (HD 05:52), "The Evolution Of Kong, Eight Wonders Of The World" (HD 08:25), "Godzilla Attacks" (HD 06:25), "The Phenomenon of GOJIRA, King Of The Monsters" (HD 09:52), "Round One: Battle At Sea" (HD 05:01), "Round Two: One Will Fall" (HD 05:58), "Titan Tag Team: The God And The King" (HD 07:59) and "The Rise Of MechaGodzilla" (HD 07:06) and a Movies Anywhere digital code.

The 2.39:1 2160p HEVC/H.265 Ultra HD Dolby Vision/HDR10+/HDR10 picture, reviewed on a Sony Bravia Z9D 4K Ultra HD HDR display, was photographed digitally using the Arri Alexa 65 and Arri Alexa Mini camera systems and sourced from a 4K master Digital Intermediate format.The movie was produced with a 3D conversion by DNEG but no 3D Blu-ray Disc was provided for review. The picture exhibits a dynamic appearance with stylization, FX effects and intense lighting effects. Imaging dynamics are captivating with respect to the production design settings. The picture is sharp with incredibly fine resolution, especially visible in Kong's fur, Godzilla's scales, clothing, jungle foliage, and cityscape environments. Color fidelity is nicely saturated with spectacular blues, reds, whites, browns and blacks. The colors actively move with the action. Hue shadings and image textures are impressively varied and nuanced. The middle Earth is richly visualized in beautiful earthy colors. Fleshtones are accurate throughout. HDR contrast exhibits wide dynamics with deep blacks, impressive shadow delineation, and spectacular white levels, and everything in between. Spatial dimensionality is superb with incredible image depth. This is an extremely dynamic and engaging visual experience that should appeal to the epic's fans, as well as new viewers, with the exciting imagery. (Gary Reber)

The Dolby Atmos/Dolby TrueHD 7.1-channel soundtrack is intense and diirectionalized with aggressive spatial directionality throughout. Deep bass dynamics extend powerfully to sub-25 HZ throughout. Atmospherics are soundfield encompassing. Sound effects are incredibly varied and dynamic with powerful bass enhancements and sharp transients. Both atmospherics and sound effects are aggressively spatialized. Throughout all the intense action, dialogue is intelligible and spatially integrated within the numerous environments and settings. The orchestral score is very dynamic sounding with an incredible aggressive surround and height layer presence. During the battles between Godzilla and Kong, sound effects are exceptionally intense and sharply directionalized throughout the soundfield and are accentuated with sharp deep bass accents that rumble. Chaos is everywhere. Kong's growls are deep and powerful. Deep bass energy and extension to sub-25 Hz frequencies is intense in the .1 LFE channel. This thunderous use of LFE requires a robust subwoofer(s) and a home theatre system capable of unrelenting dynamic energy.

The Immersive Sound element extends the music to the height layer. The action starts off with atmospherics at Skull Island, a waterfall under which Kong showers, Kong breaking glass, alert sounds and sirens, flyover jet attacks, a woman's voice announcing "Attention," and the voice of man announcing "Evacuate," explosions, torrential downpours, helicopters, din sounds on a ship, crew voices on the ship, rocket fire, underwater turbulence, all manner of sound effects when Godzilla fights Kong on an aircraft carrier, dripping water, a turbulence tunnel, wind, all sorts of special aircraft whizzing through the air, howling sounds, sounds of the robotic Godzilla, thunder and lightening, Kong growls, Godzilla screams, all manner of debris and crashing sounds, city destruction sounds and an extensive variety of sounds of chaos throughout, as well as the ruckus that occurs when Kong and Godzilla do battle. There is lots of directionality in the height channel with the sound effects in motion. This is an impressive Immersive Sound experience that fully enhances three-dimensional spatial dimensionality with the robust use of the height layer. A superbly executed sound mix.

This is an incredible holosonic® spherical surround experience that will stress most home theatre systems with Earth-shaking deep bass. (Gary Reber)