6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Following the events of Avengers: Endgame, Sam Wilson/Falcon and Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier team up in a global adventure that tests their abilities—and their patience.
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Emily VanCamp, Wyatt Russell, Erin KellymanAction | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: HEVC / H.265
Video resolution: 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English, English SDH, French, French SDH, Spanish, Spanish SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
4K Ultra HD
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 0.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Disney / Buena Vista split its recent quartet of Disney+ SteelBook releases "down the middle" so to speak, with Obi-Wan Kenobi: The Complete Series and Andor: The Complete First Season coming from the Star Wars side of the streaming service, and with Moon Knight: The Complete First Season and the series currently under review representing the Marvel side of things. In one interesting way, however, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is at least something of an outlier in that the other three series and/or miniseries and/or limited series all started streaming in 2022, while this effort goes back a year to 2021, which may lead some fans of the show to ask its home theater media releasing studio, "Hey, what took so long?" There may be an even more salient question some may want to think about when watching this series, as is alluded to in a rather thoughtful making of supplement included on this two disc set, namely, what does it mean to be an American, especially an American? That may seem like an easy question to answer on its face, but as Anthony Mackie in particular gets into in the supplement, for Black men in particular it can be a tricky, indeed almost a trick, question, and that's just one of the interesting subtexts informing this series.
Note: Screenshots are sourced from Disney / Buena Vista's standalone 1080 release. As tends to be the case with Disney / Buena Vista releases of Disney+
series, this release does not include any 1080 discs, which is why the 2K video score above has been left blank.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is (are?) presented in 4K UHD courtesy of Disney / Buena Vista and Marvel Studios with an HEVC / H.265
encoded 2160p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists the Blackmagic camera capturing at source resolutions of 6K, with a 4K DI, resulting in an often
beautifully well detailed transfer, one that only finds even greater levels of fine detail in this 4K version when stacked up against Disney / Buena Vista's
excellent 1080 release of the series. "Little" details like the ribbing on the various versions of the Captain America and/or Falcon outfits is virtually
palpable, and in fact throughout the six episodes over and over again textures on fabrics continually provide generally superb fine detail levels. This
series may have just a tad less CGI wonderment than some of the other day and date Disney+ SteelBook releases I've reviewed recently, but
some of the FX work, while perhaps a bit more fleeting, both literally and figuratively as in Falcon's flying antics, still tend to look nicely sharp and at
least reasonably well detailed. The palette has some interesting new highlights in this version courtesy of HDR, and some of the admittedly minute
differences in some of the red tones on the outfits of Captain America and Falcon have at least somewhat better modulation in this version.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier features a bombastic Dolby Atmos track that "announces" its immersive capabilities within just a couple of minutes of the first episode starting with an absolutely fantastic sequence featuring Falcon marauding through various mountains and valleys in a scene that frankly would have been perfectly at home with X wing fighters in Star Wars. The Atmos speakers are rife with activity as both Falcon and various combatants go whizzing to and fro through the air, in a nicely layered and really enjoyable designed vignette that also fills the side and rear channels with considerable effects activity as well. Both flying scenes and some of the other action set pieces understandably provide some of the most noticeable surround activity, but even less "showy" moments, like a pseudo-"announcement" of the "new Captain America" in a stadium offer great background spill. Scoring also regularly populates the surround channels. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English, French and Spanish subtitles are available.
Disc One
We're several years on now from when this series originally streamed, and so a "second season" seems unlikely at this point, though evidently there are plans for the story to continue in a feature film. Kind of remarkably given how provocative some of the material in this series may be for some, it frankly did not strike me as overly screed like in any significant way. Technical merits are solid, and the supplements are enjoyable. The SteelBook packaging is handsome, though perhaps a bit on the generic looking side. Recommended.
2022
Collector's Edition
2021
2024
2020
Collector's Edition
2021
Cinematic Universe Edition
2018
2021
2022
2018
2014-2015
2017
2018
2024
2019
2020
2020
2019
1951
2022
2014-2015