Top Secret! (4K UHD Review)
Director
Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry ZuckerRelease Date(s)
1984 (December 9, 2025)Studio(s)
Kingsmere Properties/Paramount Pictures (Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: A-
- Video Grade: B+
- Audio Grade: B-
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
In between the success of Airplane! in 1980 and The Naked Gun in 1988, the Zucker/Zucker/Abrahams directing triple threat produced the underdog of their brand of absurdist spoof humor, 1984’s Top Secret! Tackling everything from Elvis movies to World War II spy thrillers to The Blue Lagoon, it’s also one of their most offbeat and surrealist efforts.
Heart throb and pop tune extraordinaire Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer) has been invited to East Germany to perform, and represent the United States in a cultural festival. Meanwhile, the Nazi undercurrent is using the event as a pretense to bring all of Germany back under their control. Spies inside the country, including Cedric (Omar Sharif), Hillary (Lucy Gutteridge), and her father and scientist who is being forced to work for the Nazis (Michael Gough), bring Nick on board to help them in their cause. Amid the intrigue, Nick and Hillary find themselves falling in love.
Clocking in at 90 minutes, Top Secret! is a tour-de-force of outrageousness. Val Kilmer is at the center of things, effortlessly performing a string of radio-friendly pop songs in the vein of The Beach Boys, but also managing to sell the comedy. The rest of the cast is also dutiful, hilariously delivering one silly moment after another. Whether it’s a man being knocked off the top of the building and shattering like a glass statue, bicycles being herded like cattle, the sound dropping out after being told to be quiet, or saying lines like “if they find out you’ve seen this, your life will be worth less than a truckload of dead rats in a tampon factory,” Top Secret! pushes through its story chock-a-block full of goofy one-liners and nonsensical sight gags. See Val Kilmer having a fist fight underwater, which also happens to be an old West saloon, or Omar Sheriff being crunched inside a car compactor, only to appear minutes later walking around inside a metallic cube. It’s gloriously off-the-wall stuff.
Unusually, Top Secret! was not a hit when it was released in the summer of 1984. Granted it was up against some tough competition as both Gremlins and Ghostbusters opened that same weekend (with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom still in theaters), but it was a bitter blow for the comedy team who had also just gotten over the complete failure of Police Squad! on TV. As the film hit cable and home video, it slowly grew over time as an underappreciated comedic pastiche, especially for those who grew up with it.
Top Secret! was shot by cinematographer Christopher Challis on 35mm film using Panavision Panaflex cameras and spherical lenses, finished photochemically, and presented in the aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment debuts the film on 4K Ultra HD, assumedly from the original camera negative, which has been graded for High Dynamic Range in HDR10 and Dolby Vision, and encoded to a dual-layered BD-66 disc. It’s an entirely organic presentation that puts all previous releases of the film, including the 2020 Via Vision Entertainment and 2022 Paramount Pictures Blu-rays, to utter shame. A medium but well-attenuated layer of grain is on display with very nice encoding, and a bitrate sitting primarily between 70 and 90Mbps. The film is loaded with old-fashioned opticals, but some have been eliminated, including all instances of subtitles. In these moments, the picture still appears to revert to a later generation element since clarity and detail noticeably soften, but now with a subtitle track instead. It’s annoying, and a nice high quality scan with the original burned-in titles would have been more preferable. This also doesn’t have the most aggressive HDR. Colors can be a little uneven, appearing very lush in many places, but very pallid in others, especially flesh tones. Thankfully, blacks are deep with excellent contrast, and the whole of the presentation is clean and stable. It’s a major step up in quality, but it could still use a little more fine-tuning.
The primary audio option is English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. The film was released in 4-track Dolby Stereo, which is obviously where the 5.1 is derived from, but the stereo track was previously included on the Via Vision Blu-ray release and should have been included here. The 5.1 offers a minimal amount of surround activity, mainly staging music and score in the rear channels. Sound effects occasionally manage to move around, such as moments when objects or trains pass by the camera, but its quite restrained. Dialogue is clear and the track is clean overall. Additional audio options include German, Spanish (España), French, and Italian mono Dolby Digital; and subtitle options in English, English SDH, German, Spanish (España), French, Italian, and Japanese.
The Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment 2-Disc 4K Ultra HD release of Top Secret! sits in a black Amaray case alongside a 1080p Blu-ray containing the previous presentation of the film (on a single-layered BD-25), a Digital Code on a paper insert within the package, and an insert and slipcover similar to most of the film’s previous DVD and Blu-ray artworks. This release was also previously included in the now out-of-print ZAZ: The Collection! boxed set, which also included The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! and Airplane! in Ultra HD. As for Top Secret!, the following extras are included on the Blu-ray disc only:
- Audio Commentary with Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, Jon Davison, Hunt Lowry, and Fred Rubin
- Alternate Scenes:
- One Little Apple (SD – :33)
- Fetch (SD – :44)
- Thirsty (SD – :49)
- Burning Passion (SD – :47)
- Bookstore Backwards (SD – 1:43)
- Theatrical Trailer (SD – 1:31)
The 2002 audio commentary features directors Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker; producers Jon Davison and Hunt Lowry; and moderator Fred Rubin. It’s a lively chat as the writers and directors reminisce about the making of the film, dryly lamenting some of their choices along the way, though the track goes quiet a few too many times. The Alternate Scenes appear to be sourced from the TV version of the film and feature some extended and additional jokes. The Bookstore Backwards shows the scene from the film as it was originally shot. Last is the theatrical trailer. Unfortunately, the Storyboards for Skeet Surfing, The Nightclub, and Nick in Prison haven’t carried over from the original DVD release, though they are included on the Via Vision Entertainment Blu-ray. A future release could and should cart those missing items over, but also the original stereo soundtrack, some new commentaries or interviews with cast and crew, and additional promotional materials.
Paramount’s 4K upgrade of Top Secret! offers a very fine but slightly off-the-mark presentation of the film. Most will overlook the flaws and enjoy it as it is. It’s still a nice disc, even if it isn’t entirely a home run.
- Tim Salmons
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