Review der US "Ultimate Hunter"-Edition:
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Predator-Blu-ray/11375/#ReviewThe texture of the film's grain structure has been stripped entirely from the picture, obliterating the finest details in the process. Arnie's face looks like a candle wax stump, oily and smooth. Carl Weathers' mustache seems airbrushed onto his face. The jungle might as well be digitized. Even the 20th Century Fox logo that opens the film appears soft, under a thick coating of Gaussian blur. This is easily one of the worst abuses of DNR to hit Blu-ray yet. What's frustrating, then, is that in most other regards, this transfer could have been a massive improvement. What's the point of a higher bit-rate if you're just going to scrub away the film's texture? Yes, the transfer looks clean, ultra-colorful, and bright—a good deal brighter than the previous release—but it also looks unnatural, artificial, unnecessarily tampered with. The good news—if you want to call it that—is that black levels are solid, compression artifacts are absent this time around, and edge enhancement is nowhere near as prevalent or overzealous as it is in other DNR'ed-to-oblivion titles. None of this really matters, though, when you're watching an image that looks like it's been rubbed down with Vaseline. I suddenly feel the urge to pray for the fidelity of the Alien quadrilogy box-set being released later this year.
