Blade Runner 2049 not only succeeds at feeling like a necessary franchise revival, it also makes for a captivating standalone work of science-fiction.
Advertisement
Officer K (Ryan Gosling): A blade runner assigned with the task of hunting down and exterminating runaway replicants-humanoid androids designed and manufactured to serve humans. Blade Runner 2049 tells an entire visual storyline that’s full of subtlety and subtext, easily requiring multiple viewings in order to pick out the details in every carefully constructed and executed shot. The opening scene sees Gosling’s blade running Agent K venturing across baron lands in rural California to apprehend a suspect – a huge departure from the closed-in claustrophobic nature of the original.
“It’s a feeling of being doomed, you know”, he recalls.
Along the way, he tracks down Deckard (a grizzled Ford) whose been in hiding all along and navigates a total-surveillance police state where freedom has always been as extinct as trees.
The world premiere of Blade Runner 2049 in Los Angeles has been scaled back following the Las Vegas shooting massacre.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve, it is a sequel to Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner”, originally released in 1982.
What Gosling lacks in energy is made up for with an ear-drum busting score by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch, along with lush cinematography by the great Roger Deakins.
Scott’s “Blade Runner” envisioned Los Angeles in 2019 as a sprawling urban metropolis infused with Eastern and Western cultures. Though it may not be a radically new concept-explored in everything from Isaac Asimov to Star Trek-the screenplay by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green offers multiple levels of such beings, each of which struggles with the ways in which it is perhaps inadequate or not human enough.
“The thing I must say is that I love mystery”.
That being said, the one issue that Blade Runner 2049 does have from a storytelling perspective is that of pacing.
But the characters and actors I found most compelling weren’t those two.
The problem can be even more severe in television.
While speaking to IGN, Harrison Ford, who reprises his role as Rick Deckard in the film, revealed why it matters whether or not Deckard is a Replicant. For supporting roles, Jared Leto projects appropriately antagonistic vibes as mad scientist Niander Wallace, Robin Wright brings her “House of Cards” gravity to the role of Lieutenant Joshi, and Ana de Armas (“War Dogs”) is surprisingly touching as Gosling’s holographic lover, Joi.
Advertisement
Embedded with shades of everything from Shakespeare to “Planet of the Apes”, there are times when the movie takes itself too seriously but it will still leave you unsettled about its kaleidoscopic vision of nightmares to come.
