Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

[The Joker]

[Grissom]

Definitely taking a Ridley Scott approach to the style and direction. Looks good!

[The Joker]

New Trailer

[Silver Nemesis]

A part of me wishes they hadn't made this. I love the original Blade Runner, but I've always admired the fact it was a self-contained, standalone experience. It was one of the few classic sci-fi films that didn't get milked into an ongoing franchise. The one thing that gives me hope for 2049 is the fact it's Villeneuve in the director's chair. He's one of the best filmmakers currently working in English-language cinema, and if anyone can pull this off he can. But it's still a mighty big risk.

The trailer does look promising though. The art direction is particularly appealing. One image reminds me of David Lynch's 'Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times)' (1967), and that gives me hope Villeneuve may draw artistic influence from other unusual sources. Much like Scott did when he made Alien and the 1982 Blade Runner.

Here's RedLetterMedia's response to the trailer (or more specifically, to Gosling's performance):

[Silver Nemesis]

[Silver Nemesis]

[Silver Nemesis]

It's a pity this is struggling at the box office. When I went to see it there was literally only one other person in the theatre besides myself and the person I saw it with. Here's my review (SPOILERS ahead).

I've said this before, but Denis Villeneuve is one of the best filmmakers currently working in English language cinema. To my mind, Prisoners (2013), Sicario (2015) and Arrival (2016) all rank amongst the top ten films of their respective years of release. And though I certainly wouldn't call it his best movie, Blade Runner 2049 is nevertheless another strong addition to Villeneuve's filmography. A lot of the credit has to go to cinematographer Roger Deakins, who infuses every shot with a melancholy ambience redolent of Jordan Cronenweth's lens work on Scott's 1982 picture. The film is beautiful to look at and the art direction comes impressively close to that of the original. In any one else's hands, this project would likely have been a disaster. But Villeneuve pulls off the seemingly impossible and makes it work. I'm now more excited than ever to see his take on Frank Herbert's Dune.

There's a lot more action in 2049 than in the original movie, and yet the pacing and tone remain true to the format established by its predecessor. The film has more in common with art house sci-fi cinema, such as Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1979), than it does with your average US genre fare. That might explain why it's doing so poorly at the box office. But aficionados of serious cinema and hard science fiction should find something to enjoy in it. The scope of the story is a lot bigger than in Scott's film and the cast of characters is also much larger. I personally preferred the more intimate approach of the original movie, but I concede the new film has a much stronger plot than the 1982 Blade Runner. It's also a lot easier to follow on initial viewing, though its narrative dependency on Scott's picture will likely render it inaccessible to those who haven't seen the first one.

At 2 hours 45 minutes, I thought 2049 ran a little too long and there was some material in the first half of the film that could probably have been trimmed down. The retro film noir aspect is more understated here than it was in the original movie. The 1982 conceit was very much Dashiell Hammett by way of Syd Mead, and that extended to everything from the hardboiled dialogue to the 1940s costume design. 2049 definitely has elements of noir, but not to the same extent as its predecessor. I suppose this makes sense within the internal timeline, as this film is supposed to take place three decades after the original. It's only logical that fashions would change along with the times. Just don't expect any fedoras or Raymond Chandleresque dialogue, because you won't get any.

One of the things I love about the 1982 movie is the blurred line between hero and villain. My favourite character is Roy, and I always find the sequence where he saves Deckard's life before relinquishing his own to be deeply moving. The new film is a bit more black & white when it comes to its heroes and villains. Some characters are clearly bad guys, while others are clearly there to be rooted for. But there's one area where 2049 does preserve its predecessor's ambiguity, and that's in the character of Deckard. Is he a replicant or a human? The new film resists giving a clear answer to this question. However it does posit an interesting deterministic interpretation of the 1982 film's events. If Deckard was a replicant, then was he genuinely in love with Rachel or merely following a pre-programmed behavioural algorithm to make him think he was, much like K's holographic girlfriend Joi? It's an interesting question, and one the film poses without offering a definitive answer to. It might affect the way you view the Deckard/Rachel relationship upon revisiting the first film.

The acting is generally good, with Harrison Ford delivering an especially strong performance during the one and only scene he shares with Jared Leto's character. Gosling also acquits himself well. His acting in the trailers was criticised by some for its lack of emotion, but his stoicism makes complete sense when seen in the context of the film. His character's death scene, while not as powerful as Roy's in the 1982 movie, remains one of the more touching moments in 2049. It's effectively punctuated by Vangelis' 'Tears in the Rain' from the 1982 score (the majority of the 2049 soundtrack is comprised of original music). One extremely minor quibble I have with 2049 is that Deckard is shown to own a dog that may or may not be real. I thought they should have had him own a robot sheep instead, as his literary counterpart did in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Another minor complaint is that I didn't find the digital cityscapes in 2049 as impressive as the model work in the old movie, but that's a very subjective response on my part.

Blade Runner 2049 has a heavier and more portentous tone than the original. Watching it, I could sense the burden of the 1982 picture's legacy weighing down upon the filmmakers. They clearly knew they were producing a sequel to a great film and were trying their hardest to live up to the responsibility. The end result takes itself very seriously and is very grim in tone. But then the same could be said (and indeed has been said) about Blade Runner '82. We've seen a lot of old cinematic properties revived in recent years, and the majority have amounted to little more than nostalgic excursions into fan service. There have however been exceptions, such as Mad Max: Fury Road and the Planet of the Apes prequel trilogy, that managed to provide inventive and worthwhile additions to their respective franchises. Blade Runner 2049 is one such worthy addition. I've always thought the notion of a Blade Runner sequel was inherently redundant, and I haven't changed my mind on that score. That said, 2049 is about as good a sequel as you could make from the concept. Is it necessary? No. Is it good? Yes.

I'd recommend seeing Blade Runner 2049 while it's still in theatres. It offers a unique visual spectacle that's worth experiencing on the big screen.

[The Laughing Fish]

I must admit that I was never a big fan of the original Blade Runner. But I enjoyed this sequel a lot more. I liked Ryan Gosling as the protagonist better than Harrison Ford, as blasphemous it might be to some people here, and I felt it expanded the themes from the original much better. K's relationship with his AI companion has to be one of the most surreal relationships in cinema I've seen in a long time.

Good movie. It's a shame it flopped at the box office, but it only proves my belief that BO revenue isn't a true measure of quality.