Woah, I fell behind there! Sorry for the radio silence. Been real busy on my end.
. Can it possibly be any good? In any way hold up as a sequel to my all-time favourite film? Check out my review and find out!
EDIT: Since the site that used to host the review is down, I'm posting it here.
We find ourselves living in dangerous days. In today’s entertainment industry, creativity
is uncreative. Originality is
unoriginal. All too often, companies
heartlessly reimagine, rebrand, relaunch, and rehash beloved old brands,
viewing them as nothing more than “intellectual properties” ripe for
monetization. But only someone extremely
skillful or excessively vain would think himself capable of making any kind of
worthwhile sequel to Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic Blade Runner. And yet, Blade Runner 2049 is now playing in
theatres everywhere. It’s too bad it
can’t possibly live up to any expectations -- but then again, what does?
Based on legendary science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick’s
timeless 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep, Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner starred Harrison Ford as a down-on-his-luck cop in the
futuristic Los Angeles of the far-flung year 2019, hunting rogue humanoid androids
known as Replicants. This was not called
execution. It was called
retirement. It’s not hard to see why Blade Runner became a cult classic: an
otherworldly soundtrack by Vangelis, incredible visuals, a grim depiction of
futuristic urban decay, fan-favourite Harrison Ford as a believable everyman
rather than a larger-than-life hero with a smug lopsided grin... Dripping with atmosphere, Blade Runner codified cyberpunk’s look and
sound. To this day, it is still a genre
characterized by neon lights, synths, overarching despair, and tears in the
rain. Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner is a deliberately-paced
sci-fi masterpiece.
Denis Villeneuve’s sequel Blade
Runner 2049 is a deliberately-paced sci-fi masterpiece.
This is not the kind of movie you can rate out of five stars,
then forget about and move on. (“Not
two, FOUR! And NOODLES!”) True to the original film, 2049 follows a lone blade runner on a
slow-paced investigative thriller through a shadowy cyberpunk future that is
both awe-inspiring and terrifying, plausible yet horrible. Built upon the foundation laid by Ridley
Scott’s classic, 2049 tells a similar
story with many parallels, but it still manages to have its own identity. It is not a mere retelling of the original
film, even though both ostensibly tell their own tale of a conflicted blade
runner tracking down Replicants while finding more questions than answers, with
important subplots involving an artificial woman they hold dear.
Ryan Gosling stars as a quiet, reserved blade runner who,
after a routine Replicant retirement, accidentally stumbles upon a thirty-year-old
mystery which could rewrite the rules of Blade
Runner’s world. His search for clues
takes him from the massive, wedge-shaped LAPD building to the headquarters of
the Wallace Corporation, who took over the Tyrell Corporation and built an even
bigger pyramid out of the old Tyrell campus from the first film. The search for answers drives the
tight-lipped blade runner into the bustling, rain-soaked neon-lit streets, to
the off-the-grid society living in the junkyards beyond the city limits, and
even into the irradiated wasteland of the kipple, not seen in the first movie
but explored in Philip K. Dick’s novel and Westwood’s computer game that
blended book and film.
Even though he does not talk much, Gosling’s character is
never alone. His superior officer is on
his case, the virtual eyes of surveillance equipment (friendly and otherwise) track
his every move, and whether he finds himself surrounded by the shady citizens
of Animoid Row, slave children in the junkyard, beautiful prostitutes, or the
cagey business types from the Wallace Corporation, danger lurks around every
corner and those he can trust are few and far between. His story does not directly mirror Deckard’s
adventure from the first film, but there are parallels. Not to mention Deckard himself.
Gosling shares the screen with Harrison Ford, returning once
again as ex-cop, ex-killer, ex-blade runner Rick Deckard. An important character in the investigation,
Deckard has been in hiding since the events of the first film. Make no mistake, 2049 is not merely a story set within the Blade Runner universe but a sequel – old fans will be treated with
some familiar sights and sounds. Thirty
years have passed since the events of Scott’s Blade Runner: The Final Cut, the version of the first movie which
Villeneuve has confirmed his film follows.
The amount of questions the original film left unanswered grows, and the
characters of 2049 risk life and limb
to solve its many mysteries.
Speaking of Harrison Ford, it was a real treat to see him not
only return to one of his greatest characters, but to actually act again. Ford delivers a surprisingly emotional
performance, rendered all the more powerful due to the context of a particular
scene. Deckard is through running, blade
running or otherwise, and is simply a tired old man. The rest of the cast deliver strong
performances as well, such as Gosling’s character keeping an air of calm
professionalism despite the struggles of his unique line of work – until he is simply
no longer able to.
Blade Runner 2049’s
technical aspects are superb.
Composition and lighting are exquisite, as you would expect from a film
worthy of the title Blade Runner. World design, much like set design, is
top-notch, with meticulously-detailed physical sets brought to life with practical
effects and improved with special effects, lit well and perfectly captured on
camera. Naturally, there is a copious
amount of CGI, but for the most part, it feels well-blended with the world,
does not draw attention to itself, and used with purposed rather than simply exist
as a large-budget display of Hollywood excess.
Again, very true to the original film.
One of the reasons it so faithful to Blade Runner might be the amount of returning veterans from the
first film. Bud Yorkin returns as a producer.
Ridley Scott returns not as director but
as executive producer and was on the set to give input. The story and screenplay are once again by
Hampton Fancher. Of course, director
Denis Villeneuve’s respect for the original film cannot be ignored. Neither can the return of Harrison Ford to
the character of Rick Deckard.
Bear in mind that this cinematic sci-fi experience is not a
short one. Clocking in at two hours and
forty-four deliberately-paced minutes, Blade
Runner 2049 somehow manages to drag its feet even more than the original,
which earned it the notorious nickname of “Blade Crawler.” This is not an action movie. It is a slow-paced hard-sci-fi art film,
which makes it even more surprising that it was made at all, especially as a
big-budget blockbuster from a major studio.
Villeneuve’s work feels like the sort of film that should be touring the
festival circuit as a low-budget student project rather than have big-name
actors and a cult-classic brand tied to it while it gets screened in megaplexes
around the world. And I do mean in that
greatest way possible.
Blade Runner 2049 is
not without its faults. The story in
particular relies upon a startling revelation that contradicts Chapter Sixteen
of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,
but more importantly, feels like bad fanfiction. It would seem that the writer really ran with
the concept of the Replicant as “the humanoid robot – strictly speaking, the
organic android” as outlined in Chapter Two of the novel. Granted, the films are only based on and
inspired by Philip K. Dick’s book and do not take it as canon, and the idea has
apparently come up in other Blade Runner
media, but it still feels tacky at best.
Furthermore, the fact that Replicants are in fact fabricated labourers
and not living, feeling human beings with rights, makes it impossible to take
seriously the film’s presentation of Replicants as a downtrodden, second-class
people, as they are in fact manufactured slaves.
Hans Zimmer provides the music this time around, and rather
than simply make a soundtrack, he has created a haunting audioscape to
perfectly complement the images on screen.
The result is a chilling atmosphere of mystery and wonder, but a
departure from Vangelis’ electronic sound, a trademark of the first film. Classic Vangelis tracks, such as the timeless
“Blade Runner Blues” and original movie’s end credits theme, are nowhere to be
found. At least one scene featured
old-world music, but “One More Kiss, Dear” did not make its return. Vangelis’ “Tears in the Rain” is heard, and a
take on the classic Main Titles theme is used in marketing materials, but the
classic synthesizer-focused future-noir sound of Blade Runner is missing from 2049,
which has its own musical identity.
All in all, I am stunned.
Not only is Blade Runner 2049
a fantastic cyberpunk art film, it actually manages to be a worthy sequel to my
all-time favourite movie. In an age
where needless reimaginings and unnecessary sequels get churned out without
craft or effort, this film’s mere existence is no small miracle, and makes it
even more of an achievement. Blade Runner 2049 is not to be missed. Félicitations,
M. Villeneuve. You’ve done a man’s
job, sir.
This movie review is
provided by Atomic Moo’s designated Canadian, Numbers, who dreams of electric
sheep, wants more life, and will tell you about his mother. His opinions are facts."
