NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

Firstly, while this is a review of the 4K UHD package of Andrew Niccol's Gattaca we do not have the ability, presently, to take (3840 X 2160) screen captures of this particular 4K UHD. But we do have some things to say and wanted to get this review out as the is released this week. If/when we can obtain 4K UHD screen captures - we will add them.

ADDITION: Sony 4K UHD (March 2021): Sony have transferred Andrew Niccol's Gattaca to 4K UHD. It includes the same Blu-ray that was produced in late 2007 - early 2008 - see the M2TS files:

It is the exact same disc, same extras etc.

Our initial reviews of the Blu-ray, almost 14 years ago, was that it was fairly modest, but looking now - certainly comparing them to the stellar 4K UHD image - you can see the 1080P is fairly brittle with minor edge enhancement. We had compared the Blu-ray to 4 DVDs, but the improvement was less demonstrative than the 4K UHD superiority is over the weaker Blu-ray.

The 4K UHD fills over 55Gig of space and has over double the bitrate of the Blu-ray. But the bigger issue is that the prevalent, if minor, digitization form the BD is not present on the glorious new 4K UHD that show a wonderful consistent grain texture. The 4K UHD HDR application is restrained in that colors don't get overly vibrant, but the film's majestic art direction shines in the 2160 presentation. Greens have some subtle prominence. Bottom line; in terms of video, this is a huge improvement over the Blu-ray. The impressive looking film reaches a significantly superior presentation in 4K UHD avoiding the digitization of the Blu-ray.  

NOTE: We have added 92 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

If you are fortunate enough to have a setup that allows for Dolby Atmos or Dolby TrueHD 7.1, Sony's 4K UHD track handles the effects with ease exporting some appealing separations. The beautiful Gattaca score is by Michael Nyman (Man with a Movie Camera, The Piano, Keep It Up Downstairs, Peter Greenaway's A Zed & Two Noughts etc.) There is a nice balance with the calm, noble score and the infrequent aggressive scenes and underlying class conflict between those born with the right genes and de-gene-erates. The audio is impressive. There are a few optional foreign language DUBs and subtitle (often not directly translated ?!?!) options including English and English (SDH) and as with all 4K UHD discs, this Sony package is Region 'Free' (Blu-ray too!) playable worldwide. 

NOTE: For Atmos many non-compliant systems will recognizes it as TrueHD 7.1, but from Wikipedia: "Because of limited bandwidth and lack of processing power, Atmos in home theaters is not a real-time mix rendered the same way as in cinemas. The substream is added to Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus. This substream only represents a losslessly encoded fully object-based mix. This substream does not include all 128 objects separated. This is not a matrix-encoded channel, but a spatially-encoded digital channel. Atmos in home theaters can support 24.1.10 channel, but it is not an object-based real-time rendering. Filmmakers need to remix and render the TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks with Dolby Media Producer."

The Sony 4K UHD has only a trailer but the included 2008 Blu-ray offers a short, humorous Substance Test Outtake and three featurettes. The first, simply entitled 'Original Featurette' runs for about 6 minutes and is pretty standard stuff. The next two go into more detail about production. Welcome to Gattaca is about 20 minutes long and Do Not Alter? is about 1/4 hour. Both touch on the science-fiction-factual component of Gattaca. Finally there are 6, very poor quality, deleted scenes (about 10 minutes worth). No commentary but a reasonable batch of original supplements - nothing new. I'd have loved a director commentary.

I used to rank Andrew Niccol's Gattaca as a guilty pleasure but I have come to the conclusion that I don't have anything to be guilty about. This is an intelligent, exceptionally well-realized debut feature from a talented director/writer. The precise 'look' of the film carries so much via the sterile atmosphere and intentionally stilted performances. Behind Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman are a 'who's who' of support with Gore Vidal, Elias Koteas, Maya Rudolph, Blair Underwood, Ernest Borgnine, Tony Shalhoub, and Alan Arkin. Built-in to Gattaca is a less focused murder mystery that adds yet another layer. I sometimes sell discs to survive but this 4K UHD is a keeper. I have already watched it four times this past weekend. The film and greatly improved a/v of the 4K UHD get our highest recommendation!

Gary Tooze