Moneyball - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Moneyball



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


​

Movie
While I’m more of a football guy than a baseball guy, it’s not exactly a stretch to say that baseball has been America’s game for literally more than a century. A game that started out as one of the simplest of the major league games, but is strangely complex under the surface. There’s no complex plays and strategies like a football playbook, but the more you look under the surface at the you start to realize that the game is simply mathematics personified. Stats, scores, plans, and even marketing all lend themselves to the world of math. But those numbers weren’t always the same. Back in the day RBI’s or OBP’s and SLG’s (rubs batted in, on base percentages, slugging percentages) were basically from god’s mouth to your ears. But it wasn’t until a single baseball general manager some 25 years ago started playing with numbers and looking at them through a different lens that baseball LITERALLY became revolutionized overnight.

Back in 2001 and the Oakland Athletes are going up against the New York Yankees in games that would lead them up to the world series. And while money doesn’t always matter in sports, the Yankees had an enormous budget that allowed them to spend over $110 million on players and coaches and consultants to elevate them straight into the series. The poor Oakland Athletes never stood a chance with their $39 million budget, and to make matters even worse, they’re about to lose their star players. With only $39 million for the budget there’s absolutely no way that the Athletes can buy newer, highly desired players. And using free agency to attract other players isn’t going to give them the player base they actually need. All of that to say, their 2002 game season was looking REALLY bleak.

Struggling to pull off a miracle, young general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) tries to beef up his team through classic techniques. Using some clever trades, the free agency, and a little bit of begging, he attempts to rebuild his team for next year only to get rejected when traveling to Cleveland to trade for a pair of players. But while there he meets Yale graduate Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who believes in a controversial belief that players who get on base are more valuable than typical players who adhere to the standard hitting/running stats of the time. Brand’s theory was that the game is won by actually making runs, and people who get on base end up making more runs, even if they don’t top the majority of the traditional numbers. Trading for Brand, Billy hires the green college graduate and promotes him to be his assistant general manager and with his help, pulls together a team of cast offs and renegade players with a strong history of getting on base. Despite his own consultants and owners telling him no, Billy and Brand go for broke with their team of misfits, and end up revolutionizing how numbers in baseball are seen over the last quarter of a century.

Moneyball is one of those stories that doesn’t seem to be that interesting on the surface. It’s based upon a true story, revolving around the dynamics BEHIND baseball rather than an exhilarating underdog story ala Rudy, A League of Their Own etc.. Instead it takes a methodical look at the numbers in the game and how to manipulate them to your favor when everyone was overlooking a key statistic that was the key to boosting player scoring. Amusingly enough it feels like a brute force attack at first, but upon implementing it into classical takes on baseball strategies turned out to be an incredible asset. Now the idea of getting on bases is such a key component of a baseball players mathematical makeup that it can’t be taken out without completely ruining the algorithms.

But, does it make a good movie? Oh yeah. Moneyball manages to be one of the better “boring” movies (I say that “boring” facetiously) that I hadn’t seen till Covid. It may not be a thrill a minute sports movie with a crescendo ending, but it is extremely fascinating to watch. ESPECIALLY if you’re a fan of numbers. Brad Pitt is amazing as Billy Beane, and this is the film that cemented Jonah Hill as a marketable star instead of just being that “fat funny guy” and being in gross out comedies. He knocks the roll out of the park and is easily the highlight of the entire film. There’s a lot of great actors putting




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for some strong language




4K Video: Video:

From what information I could pull up, and by Sony using the phrase “approved by Bennett Miller” as the calling card for this transfer, I’m going to guess that Sony hasn’t remastered the film since the 2011 release. Needless to say the transfer looks good, but never is amazingly sharp and clean even though it was given a a 4K print for the theatrical release. Colors are good, with strong greens (for the field, duh), and good blues, but I noticed faces could sometimes look a teensy bit smoother than I’d like for a modern 4K release. Fine details are generally really nice, with appreciable details upticks from the aging Blu-ray. I did notice that the minimal banding that was present in the 1080p disc is finally gone in the 4K UHD one as well. Maybe not a jaw dropping upgrade, but certainly a good one considering the Dolby Vision application adds such a nice punch to the colors and black levels.









Audio:

Right off the bat I’m going to have let people know about the slight reason that this disc got delayed till May 12th. It sports a VERY similar mix to the 2011 Blu-ray disc, but has one major flaw in it that was NOT intentional by Sony. That flaw being the fact that the LFE channel is heavily subdued compared to the Blu-ray. Something which Sony is aware of and has pushed back the release date nearly a full month to accommodate that. As such I feel it’s sort of unfair to give this audio track a score, as it doesn’t actually showcase the actual LFE that will be released to consumers soon.

The audio mix, sans LFE foible, is really good. Very much like the original Blu-ray, with great surround usage with the baseball scenes, and a more subtle application filled with nuance in the board room meetings. Dialog is strong and clean, and I noticed no imbalance between the surrounds and the dialog. Strangely enough, while the LFE is heavily subdued, the track actually sounds rather nice. I noticed it was missing when I saw the hullabaloo online and then compared to my Blu-ray and noticed the difference, but overall the mix is very pleasant, and with the added bass would have EASILY hit 4.5/5 (or WILL hit 4.5/5 I should say considering replacement discs are coming out)












Extras:

• Deleted Scenes
• Brad Loses It
• Billy Beane: Re-Inventing the Game
• Drafting the Team
• Moneyball: Playing the Game
• Adapting Moneyball
• NEW! Theatrical Trailer

Final Score: ​

Moneyball was one of those films that I didn’t see coming back in 2011. I’m not a baseball fan, so sort of put it on the back burner for years, even though I eventually did pick up the Blu-ray. But upon looking into the actual history of the film’s true life scenario, I dove in a few years back and ended up having egg on my face for having missed it for so long. The new 4K UHD disc is a solid enough upgrade over the Blu-ray, albeit there are the above mentioned issues with the audio mix that is going to be fixed in the future, and the use of an aging 4K master for this release. As such, I would hesitate to go blind buy it if you haven’t, as the differences are going to be moderate rather than a massive upgrade. But still, a great film and one of the best of the early 2010’s for sure.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Brad Pitt, Robin Wright, Johan Hill, Chris Pratt, Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Directed by: Bennett Miller
Written by: Steven Zailian, Aaron Sorkin, Stan Chervin
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French, Spanish DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Sony Pictures
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 133 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: May 12th, 2026

Recommendation: GreatWatch