From Oscar-winning Producer Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us, Nope) comes Oscar nominee Dev Patel’s (Slumdog Millionaire, Lion) astonishing tour-de-force directorial debut, inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage. Patel stars as a man with no name, scarred by a brutal childhood, who ekes out a meager living in underground fighting rings. But when he finds a way to rise up and infiltrate his city’s corrupt elite, he kicks off an explosive campaign for retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him as a boy. Channeling the rage of the poor and powerless, an unexpected hero emerges in this fight-filled action epic.

For in-depth thoughts on Monkey Man, please see my colleague Larry Fried’s review from its original SXSW debut here.

Video Quality

The 4K UHD Blu-Ray of Monkey Man offers a nice uptick in quality over the already sterling accompanying Blu-Ray. Skin tones appear a touch more natural with healthy doses of crisp detail apparent on faces such as sweat, cuts, and bruises. There is a nice layer of digital grain that resolves more naturally on this release in a pleasing manner. Highlights in the film are more defined with whites more pure and balanced with no instances of blooming to be found. Elements in the various dingy environments of the film are more vivid and finely delineated.

The black levels are especially strong in this presentation, staying deep and inky with impeccable detail. The increased range of the color spectrum is a sight to behold. The HDR10 enriches the colors from already impressive to wonderfully complex when it comes to vibrancy. The warm color palette always features varied hues with plenty of nuances. This 4K UHD presentation certainly delivers on all fronts including strong gains in clarity and color. The Blu-Ray is great, but Universal has delivered another fantastic transfer on this latest 4K release.

Audio Quality

This disc comes equipped with a bone-breaking Dolby Atmos presentation that fully immerses you in this world. There are elements in this track that are truly powerful, such as the sounds of teeth-shaking violence that radiate through your body. Sounds are appropriately rendered with precise directionality from the plethora of kinetic scenes to the quieter dialogue-driven scenes filled with subtle inflections. The music and the score from Jed Kurzel bring this film to life in a really thrilling manner.

Dialogue is presented perfectly clearly without ever being overshadowed by any of the competing sonic elements. The low end is engaged well as an extension of the action set pieces. The sound design of this film is quite intense, and the implementation of environmental sounds is executed very effectively. The mix here is very well done with nice engagement of all the channels, which makes this track more than satisfactory for fans of the film. Optional English SDH and French subtitles are provided.

Special Features

Audio Commentary: Director/Actor/Writer/Producer Dev Patel, Producers Jomon Thomas and Sam Sahni, and Co-Producer Raghuvir Joshi provide a terrific commentary track in which they mostly stick to scene-specific insights while sprinkling in other noteworthy stories. This movie was a major challenge to produce, so it is a treat to hear how it all came together.

Alternate Opening: A four-minute alternate opening that is not as impactful as what we got in the final version.

Alternate Ending: A nearly three-minute alternate ending is provided that doesn’t work quite as well as the theatrical version.

Deleted/Extended Scenes: Six scenes totaling 23 minutes of unused material featuring a pivotal death scene, a training montage, and more.

A Labor Of Love: A nine-minute featurette that takes a look at the challenges faced during the production of the film including a sudden change in location, shooting during COVID, directing and performing at the same time, and more.

Monkey Man of Action: A nine-minute look at the action set pieces in the film filled with brutal violence and intense physicality. There is a lot of really cool information here about how they staged each of these thrilling moments with a new stunt team found in the country.

Fateful Encounters: A nearly eight-minute look at the morally good and bad characters who cross paths with The Kid throughout his journey.

Roots Exposed: A three-minute featurette on the folktale that anchors and influences the story.

Final Thoughts

Monkey Man is an impressive directorial debut from Dev Patel. The film delivers truly brutal action along with some engaging character moments that lend some thematic weight to the narrative. Dev Patel is incredible as a burgeoning action star, and he is surrounded by a worthy ensemble. The narrative has a few weak points and the film is overlong, but it works quite well overall. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has released a 4K UHD Blu-Ray that has a marvelous A/V presentation and a pretty nice assortment of special features. If you are craving something fun on the action front, checking out this one is a no-brainer. Recommended

Monkey Man will be available to purchase on 4K UHD Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray, and DVD on June 25, 2024. The film is currently available to own on Digital.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the 4K UHD 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.