General Evans Above Archive for Oct 02, 2015

Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron Blu-ray review

Oct 02, 2015 – permalink

When I reviewed the theatrical release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, I likened it to a roller-coaster ride with a few issues and the Blu-ray release of the film seems to follow that pattern technically as well. Though the issues shouldn’t have stopped you from seeing the film, the same goes for adding the Blu-ray to your collection. One note, Disney has released a 3D Blu-ray combo pack. We’ve reviewed the 2D version of the disc that Marvel sent to reviewers.

On the video end of things, we get a 1080p transfer with a 2.40:1 aspect ratio. It’s a moody film, with some dream sequences, so there are quite a few dark scenes and in a few, some of the characters disappear just a little bit. However, I really don’t have complaints with the colour palette, which has rich, realistic tones and good black levels. Textures are amazing whether we’re talking live action or CGI effects and the blending of characters both live action and computer animated is done very well.

The place where we get some issues – and a lot of noise in forums and on Twitter – is when we head to the audio side of things. Let’s get the details out of the way first. The disc comes with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 soundtrack as well as French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. As for subtitles, there’s English SDH, French and Spanish. The surround tracks are immersive, dumping you in the world of Tony Stark and his pals, while never losing the clarity of the dialogue. What many people are quibbling about is that this particular disc seems to be a little less powerful on the bass and low-frequency end of things compared to other action discs played at the same volume. Though the solution is to pick up the remote or head to your receiver and manually adjust the low end volume to your liking, we’re just giving you a heads up that you might have to put the popcorn bowl down for a second and make the adjustments. Why the disc is quieter than others in these frequencies is a mystery…or maybe just a mistake.

On the extras side, we get the usual “making of” featurettes, deleted scenes and gag reels as well as detailed commentary from writer/director Joss Whedon.

If you want to keep your Marvel Universe complete, you’ll want to add this one to your collection.