'Blade Runner 2049'
35 years after Ridley Scott's original claimed its place as one of the all-time great sci-fi movies, "Blade Runner 2049" arrives to continue the story, helmed by director Denis Villenueve ("Arrival") and starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford. Does it live up to the original?
The Visuals Are Astounding
It's impossible to discuss Blade Runner without touching on its aesthetics, and the trailers for this film simply haven't done it justice. It's a visual feast of the highest order. It re-creates the familiar rain-soaked grittiness of future Los Angeles, while adding to that palette with an assortment of new looks, locations, and designs. Concept artist Syd Mead, whose work was so elemental in the original film, was one of many artists to collaborate with Villeneuve and production designer Dennis Gassner, and the result is a world that looks like a legitimate extension of the one Ridley Scott envisioned so many years ago.
Blade Runner 2049 is filled with mind-blowing images, with cinematographer Roger Deakins and production designer Dennis Gassner giving us frame after frame of impossible, forbidding beauty: Overhead shots of a gray, cluttered Los Angeles skyline, with brief, mysterious glimmers of those iconic neon screens below; desolate, dust-blasted orange wastelands; abandoned cities stacked with ornate, neoclassical ruins; even, yes, snow.
And '2049' Gets Deeper Than The Original
To say more about the film's plot would ruin the experience; put simply, Blade Runner screenwriter Hampton Fancher (along with co-writer Michael Green) dives deeper into the first film's explorations of humanity and individuality in the face of technological alienation. (You can even find shades of Her in some scenes with Gosling and his Amazon Echo-like personal assistant.)
But the best parts of Blade Runner 2049 are when it's pushing its setup into new territory. K has an affecting, sexually complex relationship with a hologram who pretends to make house with him (Ana de Armas). There's an interlude in a radioactive Las Vegas, filled with the Elvis-and-Marilyn detritus of a long-vanished culture, that's been brilliantly bleached out. (Veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins ups his game.) And it's no spoiler to say that once again we meet the grizzled blade runner of yore, Harrison Ford, who reminds us that these movies were always about the most human of inventions, love, even if manufactured by machines.
[Time Out]
Whereas it took five different versions for Ridley Scott to satisfyingly answer the question raised by Philip K. Dick's speculative-fiction novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (four of which suggest the director himself didn't quite recognize what was most fascinating about his own film), Villeneuve gets it right on his first attempt, operating from the premise that when androids dream, their innermost desire is to be human.
[Variety]
Gosling Is Perfect For The Role Of K
Gosling's performances tend to be overwhelmed by a certain masculine assertiveness, but his hip posturing makes total sense the context of a movie all about conflicts between real and manufactured impulses.
K himself – brilliantly played by Gosling in his magnetically inscrutable, Only God Forgives mode – is a new-model replicant, hard-wired for compliance.
Avoid Plot Details Before You See It
Villeneuve and the publicists at Warner Bros. have asked critics to avoid giving much story away in their reviews, and for once, I'm inclined to agree with a studio dictum. Much of what makes the film exciting and provocative comes from the little (and big) surprises along the way. So for now, let's stick to the broad outlines.
[The Wrap]
…But Know That The Plot Can Get A Bit Tedious
"Blade Runner 2049" starts to feel draining when its cold, humorless qualities starts to wear; at two-and-a-half hours, it pushes those boundaries to their breaking point.
Most of the female characters could be described (as my editor did) as apps, and there are times when Villeneuve could've taken care of some basic storytelling and rhythmic needs (mine, anyway) while establishing the peculiar, suffocating, brilliantly imagined visual universe on screen.
And It Is Really Long
I can reveal that it's quite long: two hours and 43 minutes, and you feel every one of them.
[Vulture]
The problem is that 164 minutes occupy the distance between that beginning and end, yet another example of directorial excess where self-discipline would have been a great benefit (the release version of the original ran 118 minutes).
TL;DR
As gorgeous and enigmatically enthralling as "Blade Runner 2049" is, the movie isn't without its flaws. Its slow burning pace hisses with a sense of dread and looming portent — Villeneuve's bread and butter — but as much as its measured gait allows the viewer to immerse themselves into the story and allows the movie to fully breathe, the narrative introduces many of its elements far too late into the picture..
