Why So Blu?

Barbie (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)

You can now own the year’s biggest film both financially and pop culturally – Barbie! Greta Gerwig’s film took the summer by storm and became Warner Bros biggest movie of all time. It arrives on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray with a handful of featurettes and a Dolby Atmos track. They released it on the format on October 17th. You can order one (if you haven’t already) to own this piece of history by using the paid Amazon Associate link that follows at the bottom of this page.

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Film

Barbie and Ken are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the joys and perils of living among humans.

When it came to Greta Gerwig directing Barbie and Noah Baumbach writing the script with her, you just knew it was going to have something to say and flip things on its head. Thankfully, the film did not disappoint. Its almost so free wheeling here with what she’s allowed to accomplish, I feel like Gerwig could have maybe even pushed and challenged harder in areas. Nonetheless, what’s provided in Barbie is a fantastic open door to ideals, challenging movie concepts and overall surface level enjoyment for the masses.

One of the main praises for the film is Ryan Gosling as Ken. And don’t get me wrong, the guy is one of our best comedic actors in the business and has been for many years now. This just may be people’s first time seeing this side and also the character is just a scene stealer on paper. Who really impressed me though were Margot Robbie and America Ferrera. Robbie has been bannered across movies big and small waiting for the big phenomenon or coast lining to be a $20 million opener star type for years. And to be fair, she and most of her films have deserved to be. It finally connects here with Barbie and she’s doing some stuff both subtle and overt that really makes this Barbie a full on part and interesting and touching performance.

America Ferrera is fantastic in the film, too. She’s given its biggest monologue here and crushes it. She’s very good in the rest of it as well, which questions why she was hidden from a lot of the marketing for the movie. Sure, she’s from the boring real world, but Ferrera is a crucial player in the story and an audience surrogate to many of the middle aged and older folks in attendance seeing the film. Here’s hoping she pops up in more big projects following the success of Barbie.

The film has its angles, its jabs and humor surround the social culture of Barbie, the marketing world and male dominated planet we live in. Much of it is earn, not wrong and funny. However, there’s a lot that feels a bit too easy and low hanging fruit. There’s some that doesn’t really land cuz its playing on a fabled stereotype and not on a truth. None of it is a deal breaker, even if its up and down, but there’s areas within that it could have challenged and pushed and been something even more. For example, what if the big CEO boardroom of Barbie led us to think it was going to be all men and it wound up being a group of staunch conservative women going against their own living interests instead. A nice rug pull and bigger challenge in the realm of women coming together. What they have is absolutely fine, but that’s just one example of something I feel it shouldn’t have stopped and gone further.

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a vivid, colorful wonderland of pop and joy as well as tackling some social issues with a good smile. There are terrific turns in both comedy and drama from an absolutely game cast. There are moments, gags and songs that will stick with you long past the closing credits. The film is a triumph deserving of the wealth it received this past summer.

Video

Disclaimer: Screen captures used in the review are from promotional images supplied by the studio, not the 4K UHD Blu-ray disc.

Encoding: HEVC / H.265

Resolution: 4K (2160p)

Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1

Layers: BD-100

Clarity/Detail: Barbie debuts on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray with a transfer that absolutely pops and blasts off the screen, thanks to using a full on BD-100. Its a crisp and sharp image with loads of detail. Depth is strong and the colors and black levels blend absolute well with good contrast to jump right off the screen.

Depth:  Depth of field is strong and it features a terrific sense of scale and plenty of pushback to give a three dimensional feel to the image. Movements are smooth and natural with no issues arising from rapid action or camera movements causing a jitter or blur.

Black Levels: Blacks are deep and natural. The darker areas of the frame really help to contrast and let the colors shine out. No issues with textures, patterns or fine details being hidden. No crushing witnessed.

Color Reproduction: While the colors burst in the Barbie land, they still are quite refined and well saturated with plenty of tints and shades. HDR really helps many colors to radiate and of course pink is one of the all start colors.

Flesh Tones: Skin tones are natural and consistent from start to finish. Fine facial features and textures are clear as day from any distance in the frame.

Noise/Artifacts: Clean

Audio

Audio Format(s): English Dolby Atmos, English Descriptive Audio (US), English Descriptive Audio (UK), English 5.1 Dolby Digital, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Italian Dolby Atmos, Italian 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital

Subtitles: English SDH, French, Italian SDH, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish

Dynamics: When you’re the biggest movie a studio puts out, you get a great presentation as Barbie’s Atmos matches its video transfer is being plenty great. Its loud and fills the room in areas big and small. There’s a lot of depth and layering here to make even the most fantasy type area immersive and lifelike.

Height: From above you get some fun playful touches, voices, things roaming over the camera and more.

Low Frequency Extension: The subwoofer hits quite good with the bass in the score and songs that play as well as accentuating sound effects for things like engines, doors slamming, stomping and more.

Surround Sound Presentation: The room is well equipped and builds ambiance from surround speakers as well as tracking camera angle changes. Rolling sound comes with some decent force to it.

Dialogue Reproduction:  Vocals are crisp and clear.

Extras

Barbie comes with a redeemable digital code.

It’s A Weird World (HD, 5:03) – Cast and Greta Gerwig discuss the Weird Barbie that Kate McKinnon plays in the film.

All-Star Barbie Party (HD, 4:57) – This featurette goes over the casting process and the vibe they were going for on set.

Musical Make-Believe (HD, 9:11) – A making of for the dance sequence early in the film that has behind the scenes footage.

Becoming Barbie (HD, 6:29) – This one is all about Margot Robbie and what she did to become Barbie as well as the costuming, hair, accessories and the like to make the part.

Welcome to Barbie Land (HD, 12:01) – In this piece, we take a look at the set design for the film.

Playing Dress-Up (HD, 7:27) – Costume design is the name of the game for this featurette as we look at the many, many outfits that wander by the screen in the film.

Summary

Barbie definitely earns the huge response and good will it has received. This 4K release of it has a boffo video and audio presentation. I wish the extras were quite a bit more, but its actually kinda par for the course for Gerwig Blu-rays. Definitely one to pick up and I’m sure will be the popular movie to gift this coming holiday season.

This is a paid Amazon Associates link