Earthquake 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review

Earthquake’s 4K presentation showcases a fresh scan with a bright, punchy HDR grade that delivers notable peak highlights and robust contrast. The opening credits are crisp, free from the artificial sharpening that plagued the 2013 Blu-ray, and fine detail stays consistently high: wood grain and paneling read cleanly, pavement and rubble display convincing micro-texture, and fabric weaves and 1970s patterns appear tactile. Grain is fine and naturally resolved, supporting strong, often impeccable sharpness—city aerials and facial definition are especially revealing. Black levels are deep yet retain shadow detail, including in subterranean sequences, while HDR accentuates emergency lights and fire with intense specular pop, particularly at night.

Color reproduction is a major uplift, with rich primaries and bronzed flesh tones. Vivid hues stand out—Roundtree’s stunt jumpsuit with its yellow lightning bolts, saturated reds in key wardrobe pieces, and the bold palette of Gardner’s costumes all gain vibrancy without skewing into bleed. While the encode and source are largely clean, a handful of brief shots exhibit softness, heavier grain, and washed-out color (notably around 22 minutes at the dam wide, at 28 minutes during a discussion atop the dam, and at 1:06:07 during a shout across a damaged building). These anomalies are fleeting and appear source-bound. Overall, this is a substantial video upgrade with impactful HDR and faithful film texture.

Universal supplies a new Dolby Atmos remix as the default, with the original Sensurround 2.1 track available as an option (though it cannot replicate the theatrical rig). The Atmos mix immediately impresses: John Williams’ score exhibits crisp orchestral detail and substantial low-end weight, sounding modern yet faithful. The film’s largely dialogue-forward melodrama is rendered with stable front-and-center placement, keeping voices intelligible over music and effects except in the most chaotic passages. Some exchanges retain era-typical roughness and occasional scratchiness, but overall prioritization is sound.

When the mayhem hits—during the mid-film quake and the climactic dam failure—the Atmos track opens up decisively. Bass digs deep with pleasingly rumbly extension, energizing collapsing structures, explosions, and aftershocks. Surrounds envelop with panicked crowds and cascading debris, while the height layer credibly maps falling fixtures and allows brief, trackable flyovers for helicopters. Although fundamentally a stereo-rooted mix, the front soundstage is wide and the panning is smooth, yielding seamless integration between base and overhead beds. By contrast, the Sensurround option presents pushed dialogue and comparatively flatter, underwhelming low end. Overall, the Atmos presentation sells the large-scale destruction with conviction while preserving musical fidelity and period-accurate dialogue character.

Despite the format upgrade, this 4K UHD disc offers no on-disc supplemental features. There are no commentaries, featurettes, trailers, TV/radio spots, still galleries, archival interviews, or promotional materials. The menu provides only basic playback options, with no PiP, branching, or BD-ROM content. Collectors seeking production context, restoration insights, or historical ephemera will need to consult earlier editions, as this package is strictly feature-only.

Earthquake (1974) channels the peak-’70s disaster cycle (post-Airport) with a studio-scale production pitched as “An Event,” where the catastrophe takes top billing over its stars. The ensemble—Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Victoria Principal, Richard Roundtree, and Geneviève Bujold—anchors a soapy domestic and professional web designed to ratchet tension before the main shock. The film’s signature achievement remains its grounded, analogue spectacle: Los Angeles landmarks fracture and crumble with convincing weight, notably the Capitol Records building, as intricate miniatures shear and collapse in stages rather than exploding. The restraint—eschewing easy iconography like toppling the Hollywood sign—adds plausibility missing from later, all-digital excess.

Amid the grand destruction, the film threads in human-scale details that keep the stakes immediate: children turning a hospital fountain into a makeshift pool, a brief comic-relief turn from Walter Matthau to buoy spirits, and sharply drawn character pivots. George Kennedy’s disillusioned cop finds purpose in crisis, while Marjoe Gortner’s National Guardsman veers into unsettling vigilantism—choices steeped in the era’s cynical mood. The blend of star power, tactile effects, and pointed social texture makes Earthquake not just spectacle, but a time-capsule portrait of 1970s anxieties rendered with practical precision.

Earthquake remains a showcase for large-scale spectacle framed by melodramatic subplots, elevated by a committed ensemble. Geneviève Bujold, Victoria Principal, Richard Roundtree, and Ava Gardner add texture that counterbalances the overtly macho turns from Charlton Heston and George Kennedy. Classic visual effects—model work and Albert Whitlock’s matte paintings—retain their charm and impact, and the new 4K presentation respects that craftsmanship while revealing finer detail and cleaner delineation.

Universal’s 4K transfer is a meaningful upgrade, most notably in more vibrant, accurately balanced colors and a visible amelioration of issues seen on the prior Blu-ray. Audio options include the historical Sensurround track, but the newly minted Dolby Atmos mix is the standout, bringing convincing low-frequency weight, precise positioning, and enhanced clarity to the destruction set pieces without sacrificing dialogue intelligibility. On-disc supplements are limited, yet the feature presentation itself is the draw. For anyone seeking the film’s best home iteration, this edition is easy to recommend.