Forget streaming – this forgotten sci-fi Tom Cruise classic is out on 4K now, and I can vouch for it

I've made no secret of the fact that the past year or so has seen me go from a die-hard streaming acolyte to one with more of a foot in both camps – I'm getting more and more physical media-pilled, in all honesty. Part of that has been down to a few key Sonos upgrades that meant I can finally hear full Dolby Atmos and 5.1 mixes without compromise.

Follow T3.com on Google News to keep our latest news, insights, and features at the top of your feeds!

Another part, of course, has been taking more time and spending more money to actually see what 4K Blu-rays can offer compared to the streaming experience that most of us default to. The latest case in point? A stunning remaster of Minority Report, Steven Spielberg's 2002 sci-fi flick starring Tom Cruise at his peak.

The film's available now, for the first time, in 4K – either in a standard edition or a steelbook version, depending on how die-hard a fan you are. Either way, you'll get to see Spielberg's vision in the best visual nick it's ever offered, and the upgrade is pretty stark.

This movie's from an era when films looked more radically different to each other, I think it's fair to say, and you'll be reminded of that quickly. It has a graininess and character of colour-grading that really is its own beast, full of blue tints and incredibly deep, inky blacks.

That makes it perfect for the 4K physical treatment, since artefacts in blacks are some of the easiest ways to spot the limitations of a streaming platform's bitrates. Throughout Minority Report, I got nothing but joy from the way its shadows and dark patches performed.

Image 1 of 5

Another big plus comes in the form of its gorgeous 5.1 sound mix, which has a few moments to really shine – in particular during the self-driving car chase, when a few near-collisions sound completely mad, and when a chasing agent whips out the concussion gun that Cruise's character steals and uses in an extended chase sequence.

These moments confirm and really underline just what elevates a 4K release over streaming the same version – you're just never going to match the data transfer of a disc via a streaming platform, as it stands currently.

The film itself, meanwhile, is a really odd beast that has some incredibly impressive tonal highs and some admittedly odd touches, too. Its Philip K. Dick-inspired tale of scanned eyes and pre-detected crime is textbook dystopian stuff, but the way it mixes the two big concepts does leave the world outside of a couple of locations feeling pretty sparsely detailed.

Cruise is in full A-list mode, though, and carries the film's momentum ably, while Colin Farrell's character is perhaps the most memorable of all, including the way he exits the picture, which really rounds him out. You get fun twists and some really excellent guest spots from character actors like Peter Stormare and Lois Smith.

Basically, if you're going to watch this movie again any time soon, I'd urge you to do it on this disc, whether that means borrowing it from a friend or adding it to your Amazon wishlist yourself. Sure, I can almost guarantee you'll have a good time streaming it too, but this really underlines that a good 4K physical release is a significantly upgraded experience.