Ultra HD Blu-ray

There’s always a touch of madness about the films of Luc Besson. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. With Lucy, it mostly works. The story – about a woman who gains the ability to use the entire capacity of her brain – starts off daft and gets crazier, but Besson's flare for action, some breathless pacing and a committed performance from Scarlett Johansson keep you locked in for the ride.

Picture: The majority of Lucy was filmed and mastered in 4K, and this UHD Blu-ray does a masterful job of reproducing the full resolution of the source material.

Close-ups of faces reveal every pore, hair and blemish (even Johansson's skin isn’t perfect). Cityscapes have seemingly endless depth to them; interiors look more solid and real; you can make out every fibre in clothing. I could go on, but you get the picture. For our money Besson's barmy blockbuster is the most consistently detailed and crisp UHD Blu-ray yet.

Lucy also makes the most of the format's HDR and wide colour capabilities. A noticeably stronger sense of contrast than you get with the standard Blu-ray permeates every shot, creating a gorgeously cinematic look – except few cinemas actually manage to look so good.

Bright highlights pop off the screen with a realistic intensity, while colours are stunningly intense. Light-on-dark shots like Taipei at night reveal the UHD BD's extra colour intensity most aggressively, but actually, as with the contrast, the extra richness and subtlety of the colour impacts every frame.
Picture rating: 5/5

Audio: Unlike the bundled Full HD Blu-ray, Lucy's Ultra HD Blu-ray carries a Dolby Atmos mix. The first thing you'll notice is the reach of the bass track, which will have things rattling in your cinema room that may never have rattled before. There's also strong use of the height channel as well as aggressive front-to-back, back-to-front and side-to-side transitions during the film's more sustained action scenes.

Meanwhile, the way the thumping score has been mixed to use of all of the available channels is also a treat. Admittedly, the music threatens to become almost distractingly dominant at times, but for the most part this superb mix reminds just what a positive difference Atmos can make.
Audio rating: 4.5/5

Extras: The Ultra HD Blu-ray disc carries no extras whatsoever. Which means that fans are left with the same old pair of insubstantial featurettes on the Full HD Blu-ray platter that accompanies it.
Extras rating: 1.5/5

We say: Luc Besson's cult hit gets one of the best UHD BD treatments we've seen from the format so far.

Lucy, Universal Pictures, Ultra HD Blu-ray & All-region BD, £30
HCC VERDICT: 4/5