6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 3.8 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A psychiatrist makes multiple trips through time to try to save a woman and others who were murdered by the woman's brutal husband.
Starring: Jim Belushi, Kylie Travis, Shannon Whirry, Jesse Borrego, Sherman HowardThriller | Insignificant |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.36:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Louis Morneau's "Retroactive" (1997) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The only bonus feature on the disc is a collection of vintage trailers. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".
Longhorn country
Presented in aspect ratio of 2.36:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Louis Morneau's Retroactive arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kioo Lorber.
The release is sourced from an older master. From time to time it looks just a tiny bit softer than I would have liked, but detail is still quite nice, with many close-ups actually looking quite good. I think that with some specific encoding optimizations the end result would have been very satisfying. The areas of the presentation where the limitations of the master show the most are usually the ones where there are plenty of shadow nuances. Here delineation should be better; there is black crush that a fresh remaster would very easily eliminate. Colors are stable and the prominent yellow/orange font that is present during the desert footage is indeed part of the original cinematography (the film also looked this way when I saw it on HBO). However, a fresh remaster will expand and straighten existing nuances; the primaries will benefit as well. Image stability is excellent. Finally, there are no large cuts, damage marks, or other distracting anomalies to report. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.
The lossless track is solid, but the old DVD release of Retroactive had a 5.1 audio track. I wonder why a lossless 5.1 track was not provided for the Blu-ray because the film has plenty of high-octane action that would have benefited from it. The 2.0 track still delivers a good dose of dynamic activity and is free of age-related imperfections.
Retroactive has a lot of the neo-noir atmosphere and edgy fun that exist in the early work of the Coen brothers, but the old vintage trailers that its producers cut actually tried to sell it as a wild sci-fi thriller. There is a sci-fi element of its plot that provides the logical structure for the high-octane action, but I think that the trailers were quite misleading. Either way, Retroactive is a solid genre film that might even be worthy of the overused 'classic' label. Kino Lorber's recent Blu-ray release is sourced from an old but decent master. RECOMMENDED.
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