BLADE RUNNER 2049 – Review

RYAN GOSLING as K in Alcon Entertainment’s action thriller “BLADE RUNNER 2049,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment release, domestic distribution by Warner Bros. Pictures and international distribution by Sony Pictures. Photo by Stephen Vaughan.

BLADE RUNNER 2049, director Denis Villeneuve’s sequel to Ridley Scott’s BLADE RUNNER, is a visual feast, a cinematic banquet that is much in the style and spirit of the original. For that reason alone, it deserves to be seen on the biggest screen, with the best sound, you can find. This is a film worth the effort to see it as it should be seen, but particularly if you are one of the many fans of the first film.

Fans of the original BLADE RUNNER need not fear this sequel. As one of many filmmakers who were smitten with and influenced by Ridley Scott’s ground-breaking film, French Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s intention clearly is to honor the original BLADE RUNNER. So, no, this is no crass cash-in film. Villeneuve offers a film that is respectful of, and in the same spirit as, the first film, an homage that takes us back to the eye-popping, innovative world Ridley Scott created but then builds on it. BLADE RUNNER did not really need a sequel, of course, but the decision to make a sequel is a far better choice than a re-make. Villeneuve’s other films include SICARIO, PRISONERS, ARRIVAL, and INCENDIES, so taut, thought-provoking films are entirely in his wheelhouse.

The original BLADE RUNNER was a modest success at the box office when first released but grew into a huge hit on video, and became a film that influenced a generation of upcoming filmmakers. The plot had only the slightest resemblance to the Philip K. Dick science fiction novel on which it was supposed to be based, but the film did capture the brooding mood, moral complexity, and dystopian world of the novel. But it was the film’s visual innovation that most stuck with audiences.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 returns to the world Ridley Scott created but 30 years into its future. Thirty years on, life is even worst for those left behind on an environmentally-devastated Earth. People scrambling to survive still envy those with enough money to relocate to off-world colonies, the few wealthy industrialists still on Earth exist apart in modern fortresses high above, and LAPD is still using blade runners to track down and dispatch the remaining older model biological robots called “replicants,” who manage to make their way back to Earth. Agent K (Ryan Gosling) is one of those blade runners, on the track of one replicant, Sapper Morton (Dave Batista), when he makes an odd discovery at the site where he had been hiding. The discovery alarms his boss who sends K on a mission that will lead him to the long-vanished blade runner Deckard (Harrison Ford).

K has the backing of his hard-bitten supervisor Lt. Joshi, played with style by Robin Wright. The mission will involved K with billionaire industrialist Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), the blind maker of the current, more controllable version of replicants, and his relentless robot assistant Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), as well as a host of people and replicants in the most shadowy parts of the devastated world.

Like the original, the sequel is more moody mystery than an action thriller. The cast is good, and both they and Ryan Gosling deliver strong performances that make the film all the more haunting. The film is packed with literary and cinema references, as well as commentary on our present world. One scene feels straight out of Dickens, where an army of ragged urchins live in an abandoned factory in the toxic zone, combing through the trash for salvageable materials, under the stern eye of a futuristic Fagan.

Still, the biggest reason to see this film is the astounding cinematic experience. BLADE RUNNER 2049 is a feast for those who love the visual and aural artistry that cinema can achieve, and Villeneuve has the skills to give us this immersive experience. The film successfully evokes the look and feel, even the sound, of the original film, with the noirish half-lit scenes, futuristic landscapes mixed with globalized urban decay, and an eerie techno sound track, yet it never simply apes the first one. There is always something more, in every shot.

The world director Villeneuve creates for us is very much in to same universe of the first BLADE RUNNER but we are given it on a more grand, more detailed scale, as well as in a future that has had 30 more years of decay. It is both beautiful and ugly, horrifying and breathtaking. An enormous seawall protects Los Angeles from the Pacific Ocean, the air is thick and an acrid yellow, and a toxic dump stretches from LA south to San Diego. The same jumble of grubby back alleys, garish neon, mixed languages, slick corporate ads and rough street vendors contrasted against the dark, stark modern architecture of inaccessible corporate headquarters abounds. Apart from a few wealthy souls insulated in high-rise guarded compounds, everyone else is struggling to get by in a world that is clearly disintegrating. The police may move around in flying cars yet K lives in a cramped apartment in a crime-filled, graffiti-festooned neighborhood, an apartment that nonetheless has amenities such as a holographic woman to greet him and serve dinner.

The cinematic delights, the abundant literary and film references, thoughtful social commentary and fine acting performances in BLADE RUNNER 2049 will be enough to satisfy many audiences. However, some may feel that the story moves a bit slowly and, at about two and a half hours, runs a bit long.

Still, for fans of the original BLADE RUNNER or those up for a cinematic feast, Villeneuve’s sequel is a must-see. Just be sure to see it on the biggest screen, and sit back, relax, and drink in all the cinematic splendor without wanting to hurry to the end.

Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars