Ants Blu-ray Screenshots (Patreon)

Video

Kino markets a new 2K master for this release, but it's not a good one. At all. A scratchy print maintains its grain structure, but it's handled poorly. Ants looks swarmed by digital noise rather than natural film. The screen looks messy rather than clear, more like an older master rather than a fresh one.

Resolution isn't anything to note. Ants' lagging sharpness reduces most detail. Texture barely makes a mark, whether up close or from distance. This passes for HD, if just barely.

For these faults, the worst remains the barely noticeable color. Primaries barely pop even at their best, failing to give Ants any visual energy. Contrast and black levels don't help, flattening everything and reducing depth to almost zero. Also, Kino offers both 1.85:1 and 1.33:1 aspect ratio options, but appear generally identical, although the academy ratio looks slightly more compressed at a glance.

Audio

Presented in DTS-HD mono, the lesser recording quality doesn't do this disc any favors. In difficult situations, say a bathroom, the echo is so raw, the lines are barely intelligible. Elsewhere, Ants lacks precision in the dialog, worse than age might suggest. The score is nothing memorable either, flat and staying in higher frequencies.