Cloverfield 4K UltraHD SteelBook

In "Coverfield," Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) has been offered the job of a lifetime in Japan, and his brother Jason (Mike Vogel) is planning to send him off in style with a fantastic going-away party. During the party, when Rob is surrounded by friends and well-wishers, an alien lands in New York's Central Park, destroying buildings and devouring everyone it comes in contact with. Now Rob and a group of loyal friends must make their way across the city to rescue their friend Beth (Lizzy Caplan), who is trapped in her apartment. The group winds their way through the subway tunnels and across Central Park, now renamed Cloverfield, in order to get to their friend, before the alien has a chance to. (Stacey Pendry)

Special features include commentary by Director Matt Reeves; Special Investigation Mode; the following featurettes: "Document 01.18.08: The Making Of Cloverfield" (HD 28:22), Cloverfield Visual Effects (HD 22:32), and I Saw It! It's Alive! It's Huge! (HD 05:53); Clover Fun (HD 03:56); five four deleted scenes available with or without director's commentary (HD 03:25); two alternate endings (HD 04:29); previews and a digital copy.

The 1.78:1:1 2160p HEVC/H.265 Ultra HD Dolby Vision/HDR10 picture, reviewed on a Sony Bravia Z9D 4K Ultra HD HDR display, was photographed digitally using a HDCAM and sourced from a 2K master Digital Intermediate format. The HDCAM-shot movie has a personal handheld camera feel, which effectively captures the chaos and mayhem of the underwater alien attack, Remarkably, the color palette is significantly improved compared to the previous Blu-ray Disc, which often appeared too vibrant and saturated to seem natural for a handheld device. And while there are times when the picture looks un-ultra high-definition, there are scenes that are very well resolved, with nicely defined fine details. Flesh tones now appear far more realistic compared to the previously somewhat washed out and the picture can be harsh and noisy at times. Overall, this new remastered effort is significantly more vibrant and robust with decent HDR contrast, deep blacks and shadow definition, with natural white levels, This is the new reference edition of this classic. Fans will be thrilled withe picture quality. (Gary Reber)

The lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1-channel soundtrack heavily favors the front stage, but the surrounds are used well for canned effects that are meant to originate behind the camera's view with superb discrete and panned directionalized sound effects. Fidelity is excellent, especially the exciting sound effects. Dynamic range no longer sounds compressed and instead is wide and rousing. Phantom imaging is nicely mixed into the front stage. The .1 LFE channel is used often with good effect and deep sub-25 Hz bass is a large part of the sound design. Dialogue is intelligible with generally good spatial integration and naturalness. The only music, which is a orchestral/choral score by Michael Giacchino, runs only under the end credits. There is no music during the feature. This is an exciting soundtrack that delivers virtually constant holosonic® chaos and mayhem, (Gary Reber)