Review by Gary Tooze

Production:

Disc:

Video:

Audio:

• Reacher Returns (11:31)
• An Unexpected Family (14:31)
• Relentless: On Location in Louisiana (25:46)
• Take Your Revenge First: Lethal Contact (12:42)

• No Quarter Given: Rooftop Battle (8:13)

• Reacher in Focus with Tom Cruise and photographer David James (8:33)

24-page Booklet: 'Lee Child Everyone Talks' with animation

DVD

Bitrate:

 

Description: Jack Reacher returns with his particular brand of justice in the highly anticipated sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. When Army Major Susan Turner, who heads Reacher's old investigative unit, is arrested for Treason, Reacher will stop at nothing to prove her innocence and to uncover the truth behind a major government conspiracy involving soldiers who are being killed. Based upon Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, author Lee Child's 18th novel in the best-selling Jack Reacher series, that has seen 100 million books sold worldwide.

 

 

The Film:

With a screenplay by Richard Wenk (The Magnificent Seven), Marshall Herskovitz (The Last Samurai) and Edward Zwick, who also directs, Never Go Back rattles along at an exciting pace, as Reacher uses his quick reflexes and sharpshooting skills to keep one step ahead of the bad guys. Or as he puts it: “Time we stopped running and started hunting.”

Turner keeps up with him every step of the way – the two skip past the romantic-tension stage of their relationship and go straight to old-married-couple-bickering – while Samantha proves the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree by providing them with stolen credit cards and a bit of 11th-hour bad-ass-ery.

Excerpt from The National Post located HERE

 

Once a major, always a major,’ a military official tells Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher at the outset of his latest adventure, the title of which sounds perilously like its own critical punchline. ‘You're a legend around here.’ One wonders if the line was requested by Cruise himself, since it may as well refer to his own star quality. Even when the chips are down – and as chips go, Reacher's now carry a waft of heavily reused oil – Cruise's major, indefinable magnetism proves constant.

Which is just as well, since Cruise otherwise barely lifts a finger to elevate Edward Zwick’s comfortably rote, ’90s-flavoured chase thriller above its station – even when he's throwing punches with the most grimly clenched of jaws. This time, the former army man is on the lam from corrupt elements of his former unit, and out to prove the innocence of a younger, straight-arrow commander accused of treason (played by Cobie Smulders, not quite living up to her surname, but game enough). If Zwick’s film improves on Christopher McQuarrie's inaugural, incoherent 2012 entry in the series, it's not through any special initiative on the film's part. But it's efficient, unfussy, and doesn't try to think any faster than it can run.

Excerpt from TimeOut located HERE

 

Image :    NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back comes to Paramount Blu-ray in a dual-layered, 1080P transfer also offered in 4K UHD for those who have that capability. The visuals are as impressive as you might expect for a modern film of this genre and production level - it has a rich, dark, saturated look with deep black levels and frequently appears highly impressive in the 2.39:1 aspect ratio. This Blu-ray gives a spectacular video presentation in-motion. The visual style augments the viewing experience and attributes that the film possesses.

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOTE: This is Atmos. My software recognizes this as TrueHD, but from Wikipedia: "Because of limited bandwidth and lack of processing power, Atmos in home theaters is not a real-time mix rendered the same way as in cinemas. The substream is added to Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus. This substream only represents a losslessly encoded fully object-based mix. This substream does not include all 128 objects separated. This is not a matrix-encoded channel, but a spatially-encoded digital channel. Atmos in home theaters can support 24.1.10 channel, but it is not an object-based real-time rendering. Filmmakers need to remix and render the TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks with Dolby Media Producer."

Extras :

There are a number of featurettes with Cruise, Zwick, the producers etc. Reacher Returns runs over 11-minutes and discuses the character of Jack Reacher as a whole and how the first film was an 'introduction', An Unexpected Family runs shy of 1/4 of an hour and deals with plot points, Relentless: On Location in Louisiana is quite good running 25-minutes, Take Your Revenge First: Lethal Contact runs a dozen minutes and No Quarter Given: Rooftop Battle dissects that particular scene for 8-minutes. Reacher in Focus with Tom Cruise and photographer David James deals with the positioning and the cameraman's eye for detail. The package includes a 24-page Booklet: 'Lee Child - Everyone Talks' with animation, along with a short story. There is a second disc DVD included.

 

 

BOTTOM LINE:
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is a notch below the first entry in this series but this is still a fast-paced action-adventure with an intriguing character. I agree with Tom Cruise that part of the huge appeal of Jack Reacher is that he is, essentially, a drifter, with a valuable skill set that involves him in dangerous circumstances to assist people. He is 'off the grid' as, perhaps, many of the viewers dream to be. He can easily survive - seems to have few needs and we learn more details of him as the film series continues. I hope they do many more. The Paramount Blu-ray provides a, predictably, excellent, a/v transfer for the film and further value with the supplements and booklet. It's a complete package of a solid action movie - no masterpiece, but both entertaining and re-watchable - certainly recommended! 

Gary Tooze

January 24th, 2017