BLU-RAY REVIEW: SAVING PRIVATE RYAN 4K
5/07/2018

OVERVIEW: Director Steven Spielberg’s critically lauded WWII epic Saving Private Ryan celebrates its 20th anniversary this year with a new 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo release on May 8, 2018 from Paramount Home Media Distribution.

A DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures co-production, Saving Private Ryan won five Academy Awards®, including Best Director, and two Golden Globes®, including Best Director and Best Motion Picture—Drama, and was named by the AFI as one of its 100 greatest American films. Boasting a stellar cast headed by Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore, Ted Danson, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Paul Giamatti and Barry Pepper, the film is widely considered one of the greatest war movies ever made.

Filled with breathtaking imagery, including the astonishingly realistic recreation of the D-Day invasion, Saving Private Ryan offers an outstanding visual experience on 4K Ultra HD with four times the resolution and more than double the number of colors available with full HD. The release also boasts a Dolby Atmos® soundtrack remixed specifically for the home theater environment to place and move audio anywhere in the room (along with the original English 5.1 Dolby Digital mix), as well as Dolby Vision™ high dynamic range (HDR), which delivers greater brightness and contrast, as well as a fuller palette of rich colors.

The 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo pack includes the film on both 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray, access to a Digital copy, and a second Blu-ray with more than three hours of previously released bonus features that take viewers into the past for a look at the real-life events that inspired the film and behind-the-scenes to explore the challenges of bringing that past to life.

SYNOPSIS: Steven Spielberg directed this powerful, realistic re-creation of WWII's D-day invasion and the immediate aftermath. The story opens with a prologue in which a veteran brings his family to the American cemetery at Normandy, and a flashback then joins Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks) and GIs in a landing craft making the June 6, 1944, approach to Omaha Beach to face devastating German artillery fire. This mass slaughter of American soldiers is depicted in a compelling, unforgettable 24-minute sequence. Miller's men slowly move forward to finally take a concrete pillbox. On the beach littered with bodies is one with the name "Ryan" stenciled on his backpack. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall (Harve Presnell), learning that three Ryan brothers from the same family have all been killed in a single week, requests that the surviving brother, Pvt. James Ryan (Matt Damon), be located and brought back to the United States. Capt. Miller gets the assignment, and he chooses a translator, Cpl. Upham (Jeremy Davis), skilled in language but not in combat, to join his squad of right-hand man Sgt. Horvath (Tom Sizemore), plus privates Mellish (Adam Goldberg), Medic Wade (Giovanni Ribisi), cynical Reiben (Edward Burns) from Brooklyn, Italian-American Caparzo (Vin Diesel), and religious Southerner Jackson (Barry Pepper), an ace sharpshooter who calls on the Lord while taking aim. Having previously experienced action in Italy and North Africa, the close-knit squad sets out through areas still thick with Nazis. After they lose one man in a skirmish at a bombed village, some in the group begin to question the logic of losing more lives to save a single soldier. The film's historical consultant is Stephen E. Ambrose, and the incident is based on a true occurance in Ambrose's 1994 bestseller D-Day: June 6, 1944. 

BLU-RAY: The film is presented in widescreen in a 2.40:1 aspect ration preserving its theatrical format. The picture is just flawless. Not only the picture looks great in this release, also the sound Saving Private Ryan 4K is good, a 5.1 Master Audio in English that provides a good complement to the picture. Saving Private Ryan 4K also includes  English and Spanish subtitles.

VIDEO:
Widescreen (2.40:1) 16x9

AUDIO:
English Dolby Atmos® English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, German 5.1 Dolby Digital, Italian 5.1 Dolby Digital, Japanese 2.0 Dolby Digital, Brazilian Portuguese 5.1 Dolby Digital, Castilian Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, Latin American Spanish Mono Dolby Digital

Subtitles - English SDH, English Audio Description and English, English SDH, Cantonese, Mandarin Simplified, Mandarin Traditional, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, Castilian Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Swedish, Thai and Turkish

SPECIAL FEATURES:

An Introduction—Director Steven Spielberg discusses his interest in WWII and how it led him to make the film. 

Looking Into the Past—Steven Spielberg explains the research done for the film, the evolution of the screenplay and his intentions. 

Miller and his Platoon—Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and other cast members introduce the different characters and how the actors worked together. 

Boot Camp—Memories from the cast about the intense boot camp they went through with Captain Dale Dye. 

Making Saving Private Ryan—Steven Spielberg and his collaborators discuss the look of the film, the production design, the costumes and the photography. 

Re-creating Omaha Beach—A look at how the filmmakers re-created this historical event. 

Music and Sound—Discussion with the team that edited, scored and brought sound to the film. 

Parting Thoughts—Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks share their final thoughts on the experience of making the film. 

Into the Breach: Saving Private Ryan—A 25-minute documentary with the cast and crew. 

Shooting War—Tom Hanks hosts and narrates this documentary on WWII combat photographers in Europe and the Pacific theater of war.