The Marvels got a bad rap in theaters. Hopefully people will discover it’s really fun at home. In 4K UHD it looks as good, maybe even better, than it even did in theaters.
The deep black of space provides a nice background for CGI creations like comic book ink on a page. Kamala Khan’s animation looks even better than the equivalent scenes on her Disney+ series.
The two best scenes stand out again. The musical planet is a multicolored delight in 4K. The cat finale is space station chic with the CGI of the cats swallowing people (to save them).
Sound is top notch too. The space hum might not be realistic but it creates atmosphere in your rear speakers. The score chants behind you too and layers of musical backup crescendo.
Bonus features are pretty standard for Marvel. It’s nice to see how expansive the sets were. There are always blue and green elements, but more was physical than usual. The spaceships were distinct even though they were in front of screens.
Alien makeup looks even better behind the scenes than in the finished film. The bonus features show them in closeups, not crowd shots.
The production diaries overhype how much fun everyone had a little too much with the dance montage. We get it. It’s a love fest, but that should stay amongst the crew. The viewer can’t join in.
Six minutes of deleted scenes include Kamala exploring Carol’s ship. There’s another scene on the musical planet and Kamala gets into it. Kamala’s mom gets another scene and there’s another Kamala action scene.
Nia DaCosta does commentary with VFX supervisor Tara DeMarco. Neither indicates when they recorded it, likely before the release as usual, but there’s no indication they’re aware of the reaction. They’d never address it anyway.
They are in good spirits, sharing basic scene specific details like sets and costumes, real vs. CGI cats, and now The Volume is a normal thing to discuss in commentaries. DaCosta alludes to longer sequences that were cut but not in a bitter way. It’s only a shame the extended scenes aren’t included.