Jungle Cruise 4K Ultra HD

"Jungle Cruise" is based on Disneyland's theme park ride where a small riverboat takes a group of travelers through a jungle filled with dangerous animals and reptiles but with a supernatural element. (Gary Reber)

Special features include the featurettes "It's A Jungle Out There: Making Jungle Cruise" (HD 12:58), "Dwayne And Emily: Undoubtedly Funny" (HD 05:10), "Creating The Amazon" (HD 15:14), and "Once A Skip, Always A Skip" (HD 14:00); 10 deleted scenes (HD 15:56); outtakes (HD 02:25); upfront previews and a Movies Anywhere digital code.

The 2.39:1 2160p HEVC/H.265 Ultra HD Dolby Vision/HDR10 picture, reviewed on a Sony Bravia Z9D 4K Ultra HD HDR display, was photographed digitally in anamorphic Panavision® using the Arri Alexa Mini and Arri Alexa SXT camera systems and sourced from a 4K master Digital Intermediate format. A 3D conversion was performed by DNEG but no 3D Blu-ray Disc was provided for review. Color fidelity is excellent with a predominately earthy and luxurious warm and rich palette that exhibits fine nuanced hue shadings. Greens and reds, such as the German Prince's uniform, add dramatic contrast. Fleshtones are perfectly natural and warm in complexion. The rainfalls of the jungle are vivid, as is the muddy waters of the Amazon. Overall, the color palette provides a vintage bronze filmic quality to the imagery. HDR contrast is excellent with deep black levels, shadows that are revealing, and effective lighting from lamps as well as bright daylight. Resolution is superb with fine detail exhibited throughout in jungle textures, costumes, and objects, as well as structures in the river village and the weathered La Quila. Production design is fabulous and visually stunning. The river rapids imagery is exciting as is the finale with the tree of life river setting. The imagery is interspersed with black-and-white home movie filming. The imagery is not precisely razor sharp and appears a bit soft, veiling fine detail on facial closeups and clothing. Still, the picture looks warmly colorful overall, is satisfactorily sharp, and is well resolved within the parameters of its stylistic design. (Gary Reber)

The Dolby Atmos/Dolby TrueHD 7.1-channel soundtrack is a roaring dynamic experience. Sound effects rip through the soundfield such as machine gunfire, explosions from a German U-boat torpedo, a scene through raging water rapids, lightening and numerous other examples of fighting mayhem. These are supported and punctuated with thunderous deep baas to sub-24 Hz frequencies. Atmospherics are superb such as the environment surrounding fighting mayhem, all manner of inset and animal sounds in the jungle. great tiger sounds and numerous ambient effects. James Newton Howard's orchestral/choral score is very prominent and occupies a wide and deep soundstage that aggressively extends to the surrounds and the height layer. Fidelity is excellent. Surround directionality is active throughout and provides a wonderful holosonnic® spatial experience. Dialogue is intelligible throughout with excellent spatial integration even though largely ADR.

The Immersive Sound element is comprised of an extension of the orchestral/choral score along with atmospherics and sound effects such as lightening, insects, bird and animal sounds in the jungle, crowd chatter on the docking landing, a tiger growl, crashing sounds, Indian ritual sounds, underwater bubbling and submersion sounds, tree branches crackling and other minor effects. As such, spatial dimensionality is greatly enhanced.

This is a terrifically exciting and fun holosonic® spherical surround soundtrack that brings to life Disney's Jungle Cruise as never before experienced. (Gary Reber)