[Excerpt from our 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review]
Disney certainly has a formula for animated movies that are tried and true. Rarely does the studio giant deviate from its projected path with the exception of different characters and music, but the story always remains the same for most cases and purposes. With their most recent animated feature Encanto, the story resembles everything that's come before it in Disney but features a wonderful and original cast of characters and magic that bring this story and family to life. With some memorable music and characters, Encanto impresses with its visuals, songs, and voice work, despite its rote storyline. Recommended!
Disney has jumped into the Colombian realm with Encanto, something they really haven't done before as the film examines the fantastic elements of the Colombian culture, traditions, and its people. The wonderful original song cues emote those excellent sounds of South America at every needle drop and give way to some exquisite new ideas and tunes that are not just pop tunes in the top 40 chart. Navigating a wide array of characters in this family could be tiresome, but the filmmakers do a good job in letting everyone have their own personality quirks and time to shine to make a fluid and smooth movie.
Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
Encanto conjures its way to a two-disc Blu-ray + DVD + Digital release from Disney. The discs are housed in a hard, blue plastic two-disc case with an identical cardboard slipcover. The artwork features the wonderful visuals of the animated cast and their home. There is an insert for the digital code as well to Movies Anywhere, along with some more Disney promotions.
Encanto enchants with a glorious 1080p HD transfer in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 that is simply divine. The 4K image is better, but this HD picture is very beautiful. Colors are vivid and striking with every nuanced color having a life of its own. The South American color palette of the village and of the Madrigal house is ripe with primary colors and is beautiful every time it's on-screen. This is the brighter image of the two versions, but where it excels in brightness, it lacks perfect black levels in nighttime sequences, which tend to be on the brighter side of things.
The detail is fantastic as well, revealing individual strands of animated hairs and textures in clothing and inside the house. The magic elements look wonderful too but can look a little soft at times. This is where the 4K with HDR picks up the slack. This is a fantastic look HD image with zero problems of aliasing, banding, or noise.
This release comes with a lossless DTS-HD MA 7.1 audio mix instead of the 4K's Dolby Atmos track. The track is pretty much identical to that with the exception of the height speaker sounds, which again, don't release a ton of sound. But the same issue with the bass and low end are still present here.
There's a whopping 152 minutes of bonus material here, involving some great info on the Colombian culture, their research, and the production of the film. These were a lot of fun to watch.
Encanto is a great, wonderfully made, visually stunning, musically lifting Disney film. The attention on the Colombian culture is fantastic and its characters are memorable, despite the same old story being told that everyone's seen time and time again in Disney films. The 1080p HD image looks stunning and the 7.1 DTS-HD audio track sounds pretty good. That being said, the 4K Disc outshines this Blu-ray Disc with its better visual enhancements. There are some truly fantastic bonus features here as well. Recommended!
