BABYLON follows an ambitious cast of characters — The Silent Film Superstar (Brad Pitt), the Young Starlet (Margot Robbie), the Production Executive (Diego Calva), the Musical Sensation (Jovan Adepo) and the Alluring Powerhouse Performer (Li Jun Li) — who are striving to stay on top of the raucous, 1920s Hollywood scene and maintain their relevance at a time when the industry is moving on to the next best thing.
For in-depth thoughts on Babylon, please see my colleague Dom Fisher’s review from its original theatrical release here.
Video Quality
The 4K UHD Blu-Ray of Babylon offers a dazzling display of quality which improves upon the already excellent accompanying Blu-Ray for the limited edition SteelBook. It appears that the standard 4K UHD Blu-Ray release may not come with a Blu-Ray of the feature film if that is important to you. The Oscar-nominated production design and costumes reveal a rich layer of texture and detail that the Blu-Ray cannot quite squeeze out. You truly feel like you are being transported to the rowdy days of early Hollywood. Skin tones are natural with crisp detail apparent on faces such as pores and facial hair. There are so many breathtaking moments throughout the film that will leave your mouth agape.
The Dolby Vision/HDR enriches the warm colors immensely when it comes to nuance and vibrancy. Elements in the film taking place at night or in shadows are quite impressive and finely delineated. The black levels do not swallow up fine detail while staying deep and inky. Objects retain their distinct edges even in the most dingy environments with ease. Highlights are crisply defined with whites pure and balanced with no instances of blooming to be found. The 4K UHD also helps avoid compression artifacts, banding and other digital nuisances which is especially helpful for such a long movie taking up so much space. This 4K UHD presentation really shows its worth on all fronts including strong showings in clarity and color. Paramount has completely knocked it out of the park with this disc.
Audio Quality
This disc comes equipped with a mighty Dolby Atmos presentation which handles this material with the quality of care you would want from a movie tackling the advent of sound in pictures. From the opening bacchanal, the soundscape comes alive with a three dimensional flow of sound all around you. The revelry mixed with the music provides a complex sound design that flows through all the speakers. It is not all about the multitude of competing elements at once, though. Precision is key, and no better scene exemplifies this more than the “Hello, college!” sequence on the soundstage. This is simply a masterwork of sound design, and this mix delivers it flawlessly.
Dialogue is presented perfectly clear without ever being suffocated by any of the competing sonic elements. The tremendous score from Justin Hurwitz envelopes the room with irresistible tunes that ground you in this time period. Ambient details are plentiful and satisfying in the rear channels. The addition of the height channels in the Atmos mix allow the film to be even more immersive with a great strength devoted to those channels. The low end hits hard when it needs to and adds appreciable texture during the few subdued moments. There does not appear to be room for improvement here. There are a wide array of optional subtitles provided.
Special Features
This release comes with an optional sleek new SteelBook that is quite fetching in person. The black glossy SteelBook features front artwork with several key characters from the film on top that is mirrored on the bottom, and the rear features an exploding champagne flute. The interior sports a still photo of Nellie body surfing over a crowd of party-goers from the opening celebration. Photos of the SteelBook can be found at the bottom of this review.
- A Panoramic Canvas Called Babylon: A 31-minute featurette in which the cast and creative team discuss the time period depicted in the film, the inspirations for the narrative, the ways in which the Hollywood system reacted to change, bringing a contemporary ethos to the filmmaking, introducing real-life anecdotes into the story, the desire to do things as practically as possible, the storyboard process and more.
- The Costumes Of Babylon: A three-minute piece with Costume Designer Mary Zophres and the creative team who discuss the large undertaking of the project, the inspirations for the looks of various characters and more.
- Scoring Babylon: A two-minute piece with Composer Justin Hurwitz who discusses his process of bringing this incredible score to life.
- Deleted and Extended Scenes: Six scenes of unused material totaling nine minutes are provided here in which Manny drives Jack home, Elinor talks to some of the extras on set, Lady Fay works longer on the title cards and more.
Final Thoughts
Babylon is big, loud, abrasive, and a hell of a lot of fun. The film did not fare too well at the box office, but hopefully audiences will come to appreciate the film for the audacious swing from Damien Chazelle that cinema needed. The film is not perfect, mostly due to the lack of development for a few key characters worthy of their own film. Nevertheless, the film soars with a propulsive forward momentum that few films are able to harness which makes it feel much shorter than its three hour runtime. The performances are of the highest quality across the board, and those who get on the same wavelength as this movie will rank it as one of their favorites of the year.
Paramount Home Entertainment has released a 4K UHD Blu-Ray with a stellar A/V presentation and a couple of interesting supplemental features. The optional limited edition SteelBook looks really great in person. You should check this out to at least witness one of the most ambitious films of the year. Highly Recommended
Babylon will be available to purchase on 4K UHD Blu-Ray (SteelBook or Standard), Blu-Ray and DVD on March 21, 2023. The film is currently available on Digital.
Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the 4K UHD Blu-Ray.
Disclaimer: Paramount 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.
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.