Blu-ray Review: There Will Be Blood

THE MOVIE: 4 1/2 stars out of 5
There Will Be Blood is a very powerful and frankly disturbing film about oil prospecting in California in the early 20th Century. The film stars Daniel Day-Lewis in his Oscar winning role as Daniel Plainview, a loner who builds a successful business as an independent oil man. The film is very interesting from an historical perspective as it shows, in brutal detail, the risks that the early oil men encountered in their pursuit of oil. The film is a fictional account of one man’s path to fortune and his ability to manipulate people into allowing him to drill for oil on their land. Daniel Plainview is a deeply disturbing man, unable to relate to anyone on a deeply personal level and is a man that allows truly irrational anger to grow in him over time. Daniel Day- Lewis turns in a truly mesmerizing performance which is the highlight of the film. The Oscar was well deserved. Highly recommended.

THE VIDEO: 4 5/8 stars out of 5
Back in March, I posted a review of the DVD review of There Will Be Blood which described the video as follows: This is one of the better looking DVDs I have seen in awhile. Colors are beautiful albeit a little muted with spot on skin tones. Black level is solid and deep. Detail, especially shadow detail is excellent for a DVD as you are able to see all the fine details in the shadows at the bottom of the oil wells. Clarity is good as well although nowhere near that of the best HD. You can see this in the faces of the actors which have a smoothed over look compared to HD where you can see skin pores and blemishes rather clearly. It is also visible in the textures of the clothes which have a similar smoothed over look as do the distance shots. Had I not seen high def, I would have been thrilled with the video quality on this DVD release.

Well, now I have seen this film in high def via Blu-Ray and as nice as the DVD looked, the Blu-Ray edition smokes it in all respects. The Blu-Ray release takes the best qualities of the DVD release and takes it up several notches. While colors are still a bit muted, they are less muted and better saturated and look more natural. Black level remains excellent. Where this releases really shines in comparison to the DVD is in the level of clarity and detail which is significantly improved on the Blu-Ray release adding much more depth to the image. The detail lost on DVD is now fully present here. It is as though a thin haze has been removed from the image. Faces and textures are nicely detailed with the smoothed over image of the DVD a thing of the past. The Blu-Ray release of this film overs a significant upgrade over the DVD and well worth a purchase for fans of the film, even if they already have the DVD.

THE AUDIO: 4 1/3 stars out of 5
In my review of the DVD, I noted that there was really nothing to complain about the audio on this release. The same is true of the release on Blu-Ray although the Dolby True HD track does offer a significant upgrade over the DVD in terms of fidelity and spacial resolution. The dialogue track is clear and crisp and well placed in the mix. As this is a dialogue driven film, the intelligibility of the dialogue is very important. I have no quibbles at all with this aspect of the audio. The remainder of the audio is quite good as well with a nice openness and three dimensionality, especially the musical score. The surrounds are used sparingly but when they are, they are used effectively. Bass is fuller and deeper than that found on the DVD. I noted in my review of the DVD that in comparison to a great lossless track, the standard Dolby Digital track came up short, lacking the full, smooth, rich and open sound which totally envelopes the room. The robust and deep bass that is characteristic of the best lossless tracks is missing as well. Also missing was the subtle detail that really adds to the audio experience. The room reverberation, the feeling of being in a space, especially in the dialogue tracks is totally missing. I described the DVD audio as flat and missing the depth that adds realism to the best high rez audio tracks. Now we have the True HD track which adds the smoothness and openness and detail lacking on the DVD. This release has much better overall fidelity but still lacks the total feeling of immersion and subtle audio spacial cues that are characteristic of the best sounding movie tracks. In this case, this is the result of the sound mix of the film and not the encode. As was the case with video, the audio on the Blu-Ray release of this film is a step up from the DVD and will surely please fans of the film

IN CONCLUSION
This is an excellent film with superb acting. The audio and video offer a significant improvement over the DVD release, so much so that I can recommend that fans of the film who purchased the DVD double dip and pick up a copy on Blu-Ray. Highly recommended.

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