Writers: Hampton Fancher, Michael Green
DOP: Roger Deakins
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Jared Leto, Robin Wright, Sylvia Hoeks
A young blade runner's discovery of a long-buried secret leads him to track down former blade runner Rick Deckard, who's been missing for thirty years.
The original blade runner was notorious for its post production difficulties with the studio insisting on a narration from Harrison Ford so that audience could understand it and Ridley Scott not having total control over the cut that was released. Since then it had many cuts released including a director's cut and final cut, like the way we name our assignments. I've seen only the final cut and the ambiguity around Deckard's nature is more or less settled.
Replicants are 'human' robots built to be used as slave labour for various purposes including off-world assignments. Blade Runners are detectives/assassins who 'retires' rogue replicants. Blade Runner was a film in which the characters were struggling with existential questions and this sequel, set 30 years later, is also in similar vein. It is a film that is purely made for big screens and great sound systems and I missed out on that experience since it ran very briefly here and that too in 3-D. It is a technical marvel with gorgeous frames from Roger Deakins and a soundtrack that evokes Vangelis' work from the original. It was largely shot in practical sets, like Arrival. Almost all the characters in 2049 are replicants and the few 'human' ones behave like robots. This makes it less interesting as you end up exasperating over the fact that we have to put up with existential issues faced by robots when we already know that, as humans, we don't have a fucking purpose anyway. It also reminds one of Matrix series in several instances and not in a good way. Audience is ahead of the protagonist in figuring out what is going on for majority of the film. I do think you have to watch Blade Runner before going for the sequel even though it can work as a standalone film.
Ultimately, it is another film that has bawled the critics over almost universally but I was slightly underwhelmed by it, like Baby Driver. I think all the big budget studio films being generally shit these days have got something to do with that and anything remotely interesting, original and adult tend to get gushed over by critics. Denis Villeneuve's big budget sci-fi films, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, have been interesting watches and technically stunning, but quite underwhelming compared to his other films. He is slated to reboot 'Dune' next. I haven't seen the one directed by David Lynch and the documentary 'Jodorowsky's Dune' is a very good watch.
Rating: 3.5/5
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