‘Asteroid City’ Blu-Ray Review – Wes Anderson Dismantles The Artifice In His Humorous & Heartfelt New Effort

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.

A fictional American desert town, circa 1955. Junior Stargazers and Space Cadets from across the country assemble for the annual Asteroid Day celebration — but the scholarly competition is spectacularly upended by world-changing events. Equal parts comedy, drama, and romance (with a touch of science-fiction).

For in-depth thoughts on Asteroid City, please see my colleague Brandon Lewis’ review from its original theatrical release here. 

Video Quality

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment brings Asteroid City to Blu-Ray with a really gorgeous 1080p video presentation. The transfer provides a significant amount of depth on display, especially within this facsimile of a town. The production design is bursting at the seams with intricate details along with the fabrics of clothing which this presentation displays with sumptuous textural detail. The image is clean with the bright color palette popping off the screen. The film employs dazzling splashes of pastels within the production design, which makes for a very memorable image. 

The black-and-white portions of the film handle highlights well and are just as impressive as the color portions. The black levels are appropriately deep with no major instances of compression detected. The flesh tones are natural with a magnificent amount of detail present in close-ups, especially when it comes to facial hair. This Blu-Ray is a top notch representation of this movie that should please fans, but we would be excited for a 4K UHD Blu-Ray in the future if it ever materialized. 

Audio Quality

The Blu-Ray comes with a DTS-HD 7.1 Master Audio track that represents this material flawlessly. The score and handful of songs establish the tone of the narrative, and this track fills the room in a truly immersive way. Dialogue comes through clearly without ever falling victim to overlapping voices or other environmental noises. Everything is mixed precisely with directionality carefully executed across the channels. The sounds of the arid soundscape provide a good amount of activity in the rear channels, and music and other kinetic moments add a bit of texture in the low end. Universal has provided a track that brings rich life to this story. There are optional English SDH, Spanish and French subtitles provided. 

Special Features

• The Making Of Asteroid City: A four part, seven-minute featurette which takes a look at the production of the film, the crafting of the sets, specific set pieces, some of the characters and the roles they play in the narrative and more. 

• • Desert Town (Pop. 87) (2:39)

• • Doomsday Carnival (1:25)

• • Montana and The Ranch Hands (1:14)

• • The Players (2:02)

Final Thoughts

Asteroid City is quintessential Wes Anderson, providing fans of his style with a hilarious and heartfelt narrative that will solidify their love for the auteur, and detractors with no reason to change their mind. It would be a mistake to classify this as style over substance, yet there is unmistakable style saturating every frame of this picture. The substance is present, though, as the ensemble works flawlessly together to create a captivating tapestry of existential ennui. Positioning the main narrative as a play hobbles the emotional impact somewhat, but there is still much to love within this latest effort. Universal Picture Home Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray that sports fantastic A/V presentation and a few brief special features. If you are a fan of Wes Anderson, this one is well worth checking out. Recommended 

Asteroid City is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital. 

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.