7.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Oliver Queen's Arrow has become a hero to the citizens of Starling City - but he will quickly discover that doesn't mean he can lead a normal life in the spectacular third season of the hit series based on the DC Comics character. A new wave of diabolical masterminds - including the insidious and pervasive havoc wrought by the lethal and secretive League of Assassins - threatens all he holds dear. Team Arrow has grown into a powerful force, but the dangers and secrets that bind them together often put them at odds with each other, as the shadows cast by Malcolm Merlyn and the omnipotent Ra's al Ghul trigger shifts in loyalties and alliances that test them to their core.
Starring: Stephen Amell, Katie Cassidy, David Ramsey (I), Willa Holland, Susanna ThompsonAction | 100% |
Comic book | 99% |
Adventure | 77% |
Sci-Fi | 74% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 2.0
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 2.0
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
English SDH, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Four-disc set (4 BDs)
UV digital copy
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Can there be a poor man’s rich man who is also a rich man? That may seem like a somewhat convoluted proposition, but it may occur to
some who watch Arrow and draw at least a few parallels with another, perhaps better known, DC Comics character, a certain caped
crusader who goes by the name Batman. Like Batman’s Bruce
Wayne, Arrow’s hero Oliver Queen is a gazillionaire (albeit one with occasional financial “issues”) and something of a womanizer, who
adopts an alter ego as a vigilante with a cowl, one out to restore order to his crime infested city. While the Batman reference is
probably subliminal at best, Arrow’s glistening high tech world with a coterie of acolytes aiding Oliver in his quest to vanquish crime
may actually remind some other viewers of popular procedurals like NCIS and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, where computer equipped mavens are able to access all sorts of information and
helpful techniques to assist Oliver in his endeavors. There’s even a table in the Queen Consolidated lair that Oliver uses in his guise as the
(Green) Arrow, where a body or two (living and/or otherwise) is dumped, as if to be put through one of those post-mortem autopsies that
tend to be featured so prominently on many police procedurals nowadays. Perhaps a bit weirdly, fans of Lost: The Complete Collection may also find an element or two in
Arrow that recalls that iconic series, for Oliver spent quite a bit of time on a mysterious island, as detailed in a number of recurring
flashbacks (another Lost-esque feature) that dole out information over the course of many episodes. Arrow has become one
of the CW’s most popular series, and if it isn’t particularly innovative (as evidenced by all those referents), it’s often whimsically entertaining,
aiming for a middlebrow ambience that eschews some of the more high faluting tendencies of other superhero reboots like The Dark Knight.
For those wanting to catch up on the story so far, my colleague Ken Brown's reviews of the previous seasons of Arrow can be found
by clicking on the following links:
Arrow: The Complete First Season Blu-
ray review
Arrow: The Complete Second
Season Blu-ray review
Arrow: The Complete Third Season is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Home Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. I was perhaps just slightly less taken with the overall look of this season of Arrow than Ken was in previous seasons, despite the fact that the show provides excellent sharpness and clarity a lot of the time—when lighting conditions allow. This is an intentionally dark series, in actual imagery if not always in tone (though of course it dabbles in darkness there, too), and many of the darkest scenes scattered throughout this third season suffer from general murkiness, as well as slight but recurrent crush and a dusting of noise. The series tends to understandably exploit tones of green, some of which tend to spill over onto things like flesh tones or even surrounding environments. This gives a slightly other worldly cast to the series as times, but doesn't ever materially affect levels of detail. The show rather artfully weaves CGI and practical effects together into a seamless whole, though some of the animated effects can look a bit soft at times.
Arrow: The Complete Third Season features a consistently immersive lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix which exploits nice effects that include elements like good panning when arrows zip through the air, or forceful LFE when explosions rip through Starling City. The series tends to offer at least one or two major action sequences per episode, and these regularly provide a wealth of surround activity that typically utilizes discrete channelization very smartly. Despite a somewhat noisy ambience at times, dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly and is well prioritized.
Disc One:
- The Calm (1080p; 00:20)
- Sara (1080p; 2:04)
- Corto Maltese (1080p; 00:33)
- The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak (1080p; 2:33)
- The Climb (1080p; 2:26)
- Midnight City (1080p; 00:29)
- Uprising (1080p; 1:01)
- Suicidal Tendencies (1080p; 1:29)
- The Fallen (1080p; 3:04)
- My Name is Oliver Queen (1080p; 1:00)
Arrow: The Complete Third Season starts off with a bang, as well as a couple of really surprising events, but then kind of settles into a middling rut that it takes the show quite some time to finally come out of, once the clear new "main villain" is introduced, and the promise of Atom's involvement becomes more of a possibility. Perhaps too stuffed with supporting characters for its own good, as well as a tendency to focus on things like family dysfunctions rather than, well, you know, good versus evil, Arrow isn't quite at the bullseye territory it has been, though it's still largely on target. Technical merits are generally strong on this release, the supplementary package is enjoyable, and Arrow: The Complete Third Season comes Recommended.
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