Why So Blu?

Warfare (Blu-ray Review)

Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland team up for Warfare, the 2025 A24 war film that might be one of the most intense cinematic experiences of the year—and also one of the most divisive. It’s visceral, grim, and deeply committed to realism, but it also stumbles into its own ambition more than once. This is not your standard war movie, and that’s both its strength and its weakness.

Film

Thrown Into the Fire

Right from the first scene, Warfare grabs you by the collar and drops you straight into the chaos. There’s no big exposition dump, no clear mission objective. You’re with a group of Navy SEALs deployed in an unnamed part of the world, and you’re just… there. Embedded, in the dirt, trying to piece together the same puzzle they are.

It’s immersive and terrifying, but also disorienting in a way that sometimes works against the storytelling. There are moments when you feel lost—not emotionally, but literally—and it’s hard to tell if that’s intentional or just a side effect of the film’s stripped-down approach.

Performances Rooted in Reality

The performances are stellar across the board. The cast—many of whom are non-actors or actual veterans—bring a raw, almost documentary-level authenticity to the screen. You believe every twitch, every shout, every quiet stare. There’s not a lot of traditional “acting” here in the theatrical sense, but the commitment to realism is undeniably powerful.

This is a film about muscle memory, brotherhood, trauma, and survival. It just doesn’t always say those things out loud. You have to feel them in the silence.

Garland’s Fingerprints

Where Garland’s influence really kicks in is the atmosphere. The film has a haunting rhythm to it—long stretches of silence or tension broken by sudden bursts of violence. The cinematography is harsh and beautiful, full of wide shots of barren terrain and tight, suffocating close-ups inside Humvees or makeshift outposts.

There’s an almost horror-like tone in some sequences that’s unmistakably Garland, like he’s threading Ex Machina-level dread through military realism. It works… mostly. But there are stretches where the film becomes so internal and hypnotic that it risks losing its audience entirely.

A Story That Refuses to Hold Your Hand

The biggest issue with Warfare is how little it seems to care whether you’re keeping up. It’s refreshingly free of clichés—there’s no sweeping score or Hollywood speeches—but it’s also emotionally distant at times. You feel the tension but not always the purpose.

There’s no central plot to latch onto, and by the time the credits roll, you may find yourself wondering what it all added up to. It’s less a story and more a sustained mood, and while that can be powerful, it can also be exhausting.

Conclusion: A Gritty Experiment in War Cinema

Still, there’s something admirable about how much Warfare refuses to compromise. It’s not trying to entertain in the usual way. It wants to shake you. It wants to put you in someone else’s boots and make you feel the weight. And when it works, it really works. But when it doesn’t, it can feel like a cold exercise in style over clarity.

In the end, Warfare is a challenging, bruising piece of filmmaking. It’s not always accessible, and it’s definitely not for everyone, but it’s hard to deny its craft or intensity. Mendoza and Garland have made a war movie that feels like it was made from the ground up—by people who lived it, not just imagined it. Whether or not that’s something you enjoy watching is an entirely different question.

Final Verdict

Gripping, frustrating, and impossible to forget—even if you’re not entirely sure what you just watched.

Video  

Encoding: MPEG-4/AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 2.00:1

HDR: N/A

Layers: BD-50

Clarity/Detail: Filmed digitally and finished in post at 4K, Warfare comes to both Blu-ray and 4K with equally impressive transfers in both formats.  A24’s Blu-ray has fine details and sports a refined digital grain structure that is more apparent on the higher resolution format than this one. The shaky-cam style of the film does not lend itself to the crisp nature of either HD or UHD for clarity’s sake, but when things settle down in the many slower moments of the film, you do see a beautifully rendered image full of detail and in daytime scenes brightly lit colorful highlights.

Depth: Depth can be hit or miss on occasion. This is due to the shaky-cam angle once again.  When things are settled down, fluid camera movements and focus from foreground to background looks excellent, but heavy quick movement makes for a jarring experience in busier moments.

Black Levels: Black levels are great here with nothing looking lost crush.

Color Reproduction: The colors in Warfare are nothing we haven’t seen before.  Sandy colors and military fatigues dominate, while drab wardrobe and dull primaries are the other calling cards color wise.  Blood reds are a standout, and some other splashes of vibrancy also.

Skin Tones: Flesh tones look great with nothing looking cartoonish or overblown.

Noise/Artifacts: None

Audio

Audio Format(s): English Dolby Atmos

Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish

Dynamics: Explosive pretty much says it all.  While there are many moments of lull and listlessness within Warfare, the actual battle sequences are bombastic and loud.  The house the Navy SEALs take over is claustrophobic and makes for a very immersive set piece.  While there is very little music to behold in the film, ambience shows up to dominate the soundtrack, and when wild gunfire and explosions are blazing by your ears, the sounds of busy streets and that “a-little-too-quiet” we know spells bad in movies like this take hold of you. The one song we do hear is so loud and in your face, it feels deliberate! I think it is…

Height: Battles, light ambience and empty home echo come down from above with purpose and authority.

Low Frequency Extension: Bass is deep and punishing, just as it should be.

Surround Sound Presentation: Surround channels continue the same engaging ambience, working in tandem with height speakers to complete the experience at the listeners natural sitting level.

Dialogue: Dialogue is always easy to hear.

Extras

Warfare comes to Blu-ray with 2 solid extras.  This release is available direct from A24’s website and Amazon.com! The Blu-ray and the 4K release come with different variations on their Digipak covers. You can see both versions at the end of the review. No digital codes are included with either release.

Bonus Features:

• Courage Under Fire: The Making of Warfare (HD; 28:34)
• Filmmaker Commentary with Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland and Consultant Brian Philpot

Summary

Warfare is a visually impressive and visceral experience.  It will toy with you as it presents a very realistic portrayal of modern warfare. Far more than anything we have seen recently, we are thrown into battle with the men in this true story retold for the screen.  While the harrowing tale is lifelike and true, it can be taxing for the viewer, and repeat viewings definitely depend on the viewer.  With that said, the technical merits of the film are fantastic, and this Blu-ray or the 4K edition are both amazing ways to see the film.

Buy Warfare on Blu-ray HERE

Buy Warfare on 4K HERE