Tag

Summary

“I mean, he won, but at what cost?”

Warner Bros. has just made the surprising decision to give their 2018 comedy Tag a 4K UHD release. This came on the heels of their recent release of another 2018 comedy Game Night on 4K. They had previously released Tag on Blu-ray in 2018, so it was a bit surprising to see a MOD 4K release in 2024, but I was definitely here for it. There have not been a tremendous amount of successful comedies in the last five years in particular, so I was more than happy to revisit Tag. It still gives me a good laugh.

Since 1983, a group of friends has played a continuous game of tag with each other in the month of May. The participants are Hogan “Hoagie” Malloy (ed Helms,) Bob Callahan (Jon Hamm,) Randy “Chili” Cilliano (Jake Johnson,) Kevin Sable (Hannibal Buress,) and Jerry Price (Jeremy Renner.) They have all grown into adulthood, but throughout the years the group of friends have never been able to tag their hyper-competitive and nimble friend Jerry. The film follows the adventures of the friends as they try their best to tag Jerry before he retires from the game for forever. Along for the ride is a journalist for Wall Street Journal named Rebecca Crosby (Annabelle Wallis,) and Hoagie’s extremely competitive wife Anna (Isla Fisher.) To make matters more interesting, Jerry is getting married to Susan (Leslie Bibb,) who lays out some rules so that they avoid ruining her wedding weekend. While back in their hometown, both Chili and Callahan also bump into an old flame named Cheryl (Rashida Jones.)

Tag is a fastpaced and frequently hilarious comedy. The picture definitely has crass moments and a number of extremely over-the-top jokes, but that is all good when the film features such an excellent cast of comedic talents. Drawing from a true story that ran in the Wall Street journal, screenwriters Mark Steilen and Rob McKitrick took a ton of liberties for the sake of laughter. The resulting screenplay doesn’t play as true-to-life, and some of the casting decisions don’t quite fit the mold (Hannibal Buress is meant to be the same age as Ed Helms and Jon Hamm? They are about a decade removed,) but it simply does not matter because the cast has a natural chemistry that elevates the material. There is not a cast member in the film that does not bring their A-game to the material. Isla Fisher had me laughing out loud as the ultra aggressive Anna. All the characters are given adequate time to shine in the film with their own unique personalities. The script is breezy and still manages to have a lot of heart when it talks about the friendships of our youth and how those friendships are changed by time. Director Jeff Tomsic keeps the pace of the picture moving and the laughs coming. The soundtrack featuring A Tribe Called Quest, the Pharcyde, Beastie Boys, KRS-One and more was also very well though out and full of energy. Overall, Tag is an extremely enjoyable and lighthearted comedy that I find very easy to revisit time and again.

Video

Tag was shot on Arri Alexa Mini cameras. The digital intermediate for the film on its theatrical release was in 2K. Like I have mentioned as recently as on my Game Night review, this tends to muddy the water for fans of the 4K format, because the 4K release of a 2K film will still be somewhat less impressive than a true 4K UHD from a 4K intermediate. The 4K uptick is still more impressive than what was shown in the original Blu-ray release, showing off the film in a truly uncompressed version, but some fans of the film will probably not find the uptick would be worth the upgrade. For big fans of the film, this presentation will be the final word on the picture. As mentioned in another review, the 100GB disc allows the picture to run at data speeds that are essentially twice what was capable on the Blu-ray. In other words, the picture looks much better. Cinematographer Larry Blanford got his start working on Aerial Photography for films dating back to Top Gun before branching into Second Unit Direction and then cinematography. He had worked on a number of action films (The Rock, Minority Report) and it shows in Tag in a number of sequences. The HDR highlights the nice looking color timing of the picture and fine detail is reference quality. If I did not know that it came from a 2K intermediate, I would have had no bias against the visuals whatsoever. Fans should definitely consider upgrading for this visual presentation.

Audio

Tag originally shipped on Blu-ray in 2018 with a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track, and Warner has kept that same track. It would have been a great idea for Warner to have included an Atmos track, especially since the IMDB page states that the theatrical presentation had an Atmos track, but the 5.1 sound design is still very good. The soundtrack to the film is energetic and features a lot of great hip-hop and rock tracks. Clarity is very good and I have no real complaints in thsi department. If anyone can confirm the Atmos track actually existed for the theatrical release, I would love to know.

Supplements: There are roughly fifteen minutes of special features ported from the prior Blu-ray release. 

• Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel
• Meet the Real Tag Brothers

Overall Scores:

Video: 4.5

Audio: 4.5

Special Features: 1.5

Overall – 4.25/5

Tag is a raucous and ridiculous buddy comedy that has some nice heartfelt moments about how friendships continue to change as you get older. It is a movie that I find extremely easy to revisit to have some laughs, largely due to the lighthearted nature of the script and the exceptional ensemble cast. The movie was theatrically released with a 2K digital intermediate, but the 4K UHD presentation is a pretty significant upgrade over the Blu-ray because the 100GB UHD disc pushes through data at roughly twice the rate of the Blu-ray. The film looks good on the 4K format and benefits from the enhancements of HDR and Dolby Vision. The upgrade in picture quality is the only real selling point of this disc, because the special features are ported over from the Blu-ray and the solid DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround track is also the same as on the 2018 Blu-ray release. The Atmos track exclusion is of interest on this release, because IMDB (maybe incorrectly) lists the film as having a Dolby Atmos track theatrically. The inclusion of that Atmos track would have made a compelling case for people to upgrade this 4K UHD release, but I still appreciated the uptick in quality. Tag is a very funny comedy and this release earns our recommendation!

The film can be purchased at www.moviezyng.com.