The Truman Show - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Truman Show



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Jim Carrey is almost exclusively known for his extremely physical slapstick comedy style, and was one of the biggest leading comedic actors of the 1990s and early 2000s. However, the man has had two big straight guy roles in his career that have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the guy has some acting chops. The first being Carrey’s portrayal of Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon, and the second being my absolute favorite movie of his long repertoire of films, The Truman Show. While most people will espouse films like The Shawshank Redemption, Saving Private Ryan, Jaws or other highly regarded films as their favorites, mine will always be Peter Weir’s masterpiece. The Truman Show is a blend vicious satire, comedic stylings, and a straight guy (sorta) role from Carrey that is one for the books. And with Paramount’s recent history of releasing their Blu-ray catalog titles in 4K, you’re in for an absolute treat as the entire package (outside of extras) gets a wonderful face lift into the ultra HD world.

The film opens us with us viewing the life of one Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), a well mannered 30 year old living in the island paradise of Seahaven. He’s got wonderful friends, a beautiful wife named Meryl (Laura Linney), and a job that gives them a comfortable story book life. The only problem is, the entire thing is fake. Truman Burbank just so happens to be the only person in history to have been adopted by a corporation, and just so happens to have been into the world of a reality TV show. You see, when he was born he was adopted by eccentric TV Producer Christof (Ed Harris), who created a 24/7 live and unedited reality show where the world gets to watch Truman live his life. All unbeknownst to the titular star.

Truman himself has always wanted to leave Seahaven and move elsewhere, but through some clever brain washing and psychological manipulation, Christof and his entire island worth of actors (the island is enclosed in a biosphere dome to make sure that Truman never discovers the real world) have psychologically tortured Truman into having a phobia of stepping off the island. HOWEVER, when a rogue actor breaks into the set to see Truman, all of those years of oddities suddenly make sense to the main hero. Truman starts looking around and seeing the patters, the choreography of all involved, driving him to push harder than he’s ever pushed before in finally figuring out why his life is so unfulfilling.

The Truman Show is not only brilliant for giving us one of the best straight man roles of Carrey’s career, but also in how multi faceted the film is. The more you peel back the onion layers, the deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole you go, unearthing more and more than just what meets the eye. On the surface this is simply a story of a captured hero going through his heroes arc. Truman is caught in a world that’s not his own, and as his eyes are opened the “butterfly” (so to speak) opens his wings and drives him to freedom. It’s compelling, Carrey is passionate about the role, and you’re truly rooting for the poor guy to make it out of his confines and see the real world.

But as you dig deeper the story changes. If you look more closely at what’s going on, this is not simply a tragic tale of someone captured. It borders on almost psychological thriller territory when the audience realizes just how much psychological torture and manipulation Truman has had to endure in order to stay the most popular TV show in the world. He’s been abused by his wife, created actual phobias of water so that he stays land bound, and quite literally gas lit (in the most true sense of the world) so that he is docile and willing to be treated like a human lab rat.

And on a third layer, the entire narrative takes a sharp stab at the outside world as well. Who really is the bigger villain here? Is Christof the evil mastermind behind all of this, or are we as an audience complicit by tuning in every week knowing that there is a human being being exploited by our need for entertainment. On the surface you’re high fiving the outside world as they root for Truman to escape on live TV, but upon second glance their excited glee becomes a mockery and disgusts us even more. Here they are, sitting on their back sides watching all of this unfold, and all you can see is the unapologetic apathy and lack of decency that allowed the Roman Colosseum to thrive for so many years as way to entertain the masses, despite the fact that people were fighting to the death in it.




Rating:

Rated PG by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

The Truman Show was one of Paramount’s initial offerings to the Blu-ray format back in 2008, and was considered a great looking disc for the format’s early years. Some 15 years later the 1080p encode has not held up nearly so well, and when compared with this new 4K UHD transfer (struck from a recent master) there really is no comparison. The 2008 disc is heavily steeped in yellowed and sepia tones, with a weird sense of artificial edge enhancement and digital smoothing to it as well. The new 4K UHD absolutely tears it apart, giving us a cleaner and more natural image, with a very organic grain structure. There is a tinge of yellowed parchment and sepia to the image, but it is much more tame and dialed in, allowing more natural skin colors and incredible facial details. Gone is the waxy and smooth look to faces, allowing us to see every pore and fiber of the characters clothing. Certain shots will always look a bit smooth due to the lighting conditions and button cameras used, but over all, the upgrade from 1080p to 2160p is absolutely staggering.









Audio:

Having an Atmos track for The Truman Show feels a bit much when you think about it, but it is a welcome addition nonetheless. The dialog heavy film still relies quite a lot on the front channels, but the addition of the rears and overheads is surprisingly nice. The Phillip Glass score comes through wonderfully and with vibrant energy (seriously half of the movie’s enjoyment is the score), and the addition of the extra channels makes certain scenes stand out at the end (the storm is awe inspiring in Atmos). Overheads get some discrete sounds in said storm, and there’s even a really nice sense of directional changes that are superior to the 5.1 TrueHD track. Dialog is well placed and ccertered up front, and LFE is restrained, yet still present (once again, that storm) to the point where all I can do is marvel at how well this mix has held up for the last 25 years.







Extras:

• How's It Going to End? The Making of The Truman Show
• Faux Finishing, The Visual Effects of The Truman Show
• Deleted Scenes
• Photo Gallery
• Photo GalleryTheatrical Trailers
• Photo GalleryTV Spots

Final Score: ​

At the end of the day, The Truman Show is an utterly fantastic movie on so many levels. Everyone involved is absolutely riveting, with Carrey turning in the second best performance of his life (while I prefer The Truman Show, Man on the Moon is his best performance) with Paramount releasing a fantastic 4K UHD upgrade to the old Blu-ray. The extras are just copies of the Blu-ray (and in fact are housed only ON the Blu-ray in this combo set), but the new video and audio are superb, and for once Paramount has included said Blu-ray in the package as a combo set instead of continuing their habit of releasing 4K only sets the last couple of years. One of my favorite films of all times, and great tech specs making this a no brainer as a must own.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jim Carrey, Ed Harris, Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Holland Taylor
Directed by: Peter Weir
Written by: Andrew Niccol
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), German, French, Japanese DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Rated: PG
Runtime: 103 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: July 4th, 2023

Recommendation: Must Own

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I agree, a great movie to see and own

 

[Todd Anderson]

So interesting that the overall color (temperature?) of the film is different from its original release. Glad they went back and sourced the image from the master.

I think I might need to pick this one up