Reacher Season Three (Blu-ray Review)
Based on Lee Child’s Persuader, Season 3 has Reacher slipping undercover for the DEA and working his way into Zachary Beck’s operation while trying to find a missing agent. A smuggling ring is involved, and so is Francis Xavier Quinn, someone Reacher knows from a very bad stretch of his Army past.
Season ★★★☆☆
Alan Ritchson has the part down, standing there not saying anything, or making a dry comment, and of course wrecking half a room. Sonya Cassidy is good fun as Susan Duffy, and Anthony Michael Hall keeps Zachary Beck just slippery enough. Olivier Richters as Paulie is enormous. giving Reacher someone to look up at. The wait for the fight is long, but the payoff is worth it.
Season three has a few turns coming pretty early, and every now and then the plot has to work a little too hard to keep all its pieces moving. But the undercover angle helps because Reacher can’t punch his way out of every problem the moment it shows up. Keeping Neagley mostly off to the side is the right move; she matters, but Reacher feels like a drifter again instead of the leader of a team. Season Three doesn’t do anything wildly new, but it has a nice balance between one-liners and upper cuts.
Video ★★★★☆
Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 2.00:1
Clarity/Detail: This is a sharp-looking Blu-ray. Faces show of pores, stubble and little imperfections, and clothing has outstanding definition. The Maine coastline looks terrific, with rock and rough terrain coming through clearly.
Depth: Along the Maine coast, people in the foreground stand apart nicely from the rocks, water and landscape behind them. The darker interiors are naturally flatter, but they never look completely lifeless.
Black Levels: A lot of this season lives in the dark, and the disc handles that pretty well. Blacks have some weight to them without constantly eating up whatever is hiding in the shadows. A few scenes get murky, but that’s because of how they were shot.
Color Reproduction: Season Three has a cooler look with a green push running through a lot of it. It’s not especially colorful most of the time, but that makes the brighter stuff stand out more when it shows up. Blood in particular hits hard; the reds really pop against all those cooler, darker surroundings.
Flesh Tones: Skin tones consistently look convincing.
Noise/Artifacts: There isn’t much here to complain about.
Audio ★★★★☆
Audio Format(s): English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit); English Dolby Digital 5.1; French Dolby Digital 5.1; Audio descriptive
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, German
Dynamics: Conversations are relaxed, but gunshots, explosions, and fistfights kicks everything up. Punches land hard, and action scenes have real bite.
Height: N/A
Low Frequency Extension: Explosions, weapons firing or bodies being slammed gives the subwoofer a nice shove.
Surround Sound Presentation: Gunfire and fights naturally spread things around the room, but waves along the coast, background activity, music and little bits of atmosphere all help.
Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue is clean and easy to understand from beginning to end.
Extras ☆☆☆☆☆
No extras are included.
Summary ★★★☆☆
The Blu-ray looks good, and the 5.1 track has plenty of muscle when the fists and guns come out. I wish Paramount had given us a 4K disc, and having absolutely no extras is kinda lousy, but the actual presentation is strong.
