The Accountant UltraHD Blu-ray Review
By Chris Heinonen on
Audio Quality
Video Quality
Overall
Summary: Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is a math savant with more affinity for numbers than people. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organizations. The the Treasury Department’s Crime Enforcement Division, run by Ray King (J.K. Simmons), starting to close in, Christian takes on a legitimate client: a state-of-the-art robotics company where an accounting clerk (Anna Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. But as Christian un-cooks the books and gets closer to the truth, is it the body count that starts to rise.
Movie Review: Watching The Accountant it felt very different than the trailers did. Christian Wolff is shown growing up, as someone that is clearly suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome. While he has issues interacting with people, he has no trouble with puzzles or math. Despite his father’s obsessive and controlling behavior as he is growing up, he manages to be able to lead a fairly regular life.
Where the film goes wrong is by trying to tie too many threads together. We get lots of Christian’s backstory, and then the backstory of the agent chasing him, and more stories that wind up eventually coming together. The problem is that it takes too long to get there. There are the obvious jumps in logic that we expect in action movies far too often, and the action scenes just aren’t as well done as some other movies. The Accountant is an OK film, but one that didn’t come out with all the promise that the earlier trailers offered.
Technical Review: Just like the recently reviewed The Magnificent Seven, The Accountant is shot on 35mm and not digitally. Unfortunately that is where the comparisons end. While both use 2K digital intermediates, The Accountant is one of the worst looking UltraHD titles I have seen to this point. At one point during the film I had to check and make sure that the UHD disc was in the player and not the Blu-ray. Fine detail is just lacking here, with smearing and a lack of textures. Blacks are often too dark, obscuring shadow details, and there is very little noticeable use of HDR or WCG. The overall palette is drab overall, but Sully has a similarly drab palette but is full of detail.
The Accountant doesn’t have an Atmos or DTS:X soundtrack but the 7.1 soundtrack we do get is fairly good. A few times it almost sounds as if there are direction effects, but otherwise the soundtrack is relatively sparse. Sound effects during the action sequences are good, and surrounds are used well during a few other scenes in the movie as well. It’s just disappointing to not see a true directional soundtrack these days.
Special Features: There are three featurettes on the included Blu-ray disc, but they aren’t on the UltraHD disc.
Review System: Vizio P65-C1 display, Oppo UDP-203 UltraHD Blu-ray Player, KEF Ci5160RL-THX Fronts, Ci3160RL-THX Center, 2x Ci200RR-THX Surrounds, 4x CI200RR-THX Atmos Speakers, Anthem MRX 1120 Receiver.
Pros
Interesting concept and premise, good soundtrack
Cons
Movie is too long with too many threads, poor UltraHD transfer, no Atmos or DTS:X track
Summary
The Accountant is merely OK, and you should save some money by getting the standard Blu-ray instead of the UltraHD one.
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