Movie Review: ‘Blade Runner 2049’
Blade Runner 2049 is as wonderful, bleak, and confounding as the original
Quick disclaimer: It’s been almost three months since I saw this movie so I’ve been trying to refresh my memory with clips and trailers. Oh and light spoilers, if I’ve actually remembered the movie correctly.
“Blade Runner” was a box-office failure upon its original release thirty-five years ago. Its sequel, “Blade Runner 2049,” will be as well. But whereas initial moviegoers were not, history has been kind to Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic. It’s commonly considered amongst the seminal films within the genre.
Will Denis Villeneuve’s latest incarnation become as revered as its predecessor? Only future decades of critical film nerd debate and endless rewatches will tell. But it’s certainly worthy of consideration of being placed alongside the original in that hallowed pantheon.
LAPD Officer KD6.3–7 (Ryan Gosling) holds the job of Blade Runner in this one. Just “K” for short, then eventually “Joe” probably for Kafkaesque reasons. The usual stoicism of Gosling makes him the perfect avatar for the alienation of the world of 2049. He’s a gruff, quiet presence but he’s ably violent when necessary. In contrast to K’s work life, his home life is a picture of domestic bliss, holed up in his tiny apartment with his holographic AI counterpart Joi (Ana de Armas), providing one of the few things that allows his humanity to shine through.
We start off with Officer K on a mission to “retire” an older replicant model, a one-time field medic now turned grub farmer named Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista). Because, of course, in the gray world of 2049, one of the few forms of sustenance is grubs. A pot boils on the stove as K tensely interview the subject of his questioning. Maybe it should be noted that this sort of boiling up of tension might later on seem more like a watched pot considering the movie’s 164-minute runtime. Officer K, now post-retirement, surveying Sapper’s farm discovers a box buried under the foot of a long dead tree. This box and the secret within is eventually described to us as what “breaks the world,” or at least that’s according to K’s dutiful boss, Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright).
It turns out this newly found world-breaker of a secret is also being doggedly pursued by Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) assisted by his muscle-slash-personal assistant named Luv (Sylvia Hoeks). Wallace, whom fills the role of mad replicant creator and god complex haver, replaced the long-offed Eldon Tyrell of the first film. Leto’s Wallace speaks in nothing but grandiose, prophetic terms but there’s ultimately little weight given to them in his performance.
All road, or skies for that matter, eventually lead us to the ol’ Blade Runner himself, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). Granted this comes about an hour and a half into the movie; see previous reference made about a watched pot. He’s been hiding out in a swanky retirement pad in the now-irradiated city of Las Vegas, having left the rest of humanity long ago, surrounding himself with only his dog, his bees, his booze, and a little holographic Frank Sinatra for good measure. Ford is great in this role and his scenes with Gosling are some of the film’s best. Now on his own essential sci-fi character reunion tour, Ford’s batting 1.000 with his work here and in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
Deckard’s appearance resurrects that singular question that has long been fodder for the obsessive theorist of the original film. Is Deckard a replicant? Do we finally get an answer? This piece of dialogue in an exchange between Deckard and K may be the closest thing that we’ll ever get to a resolution, even then you might have to read between the lines:
K: [Pointing at dog] Is he real?
Deckard: I don’t know. Ask him.
This question also mirrors the conflict within the main protagonist in 2049, Officer K. His quest throughout the film also brings into question his own humanity or lack thereof. If you hadn’t guessed it already; K is in fact a replicant. This isn’t a secret that the film tries to hide. But his connection to characters in the first film and the nature of those relationships are central to the mystery of this sequel. While K is curious about the nature of his existence, Deckard is satisfied in the belief that he “knows what’s real.”
And in a climax that’s not entirely befitting of a beautiful but yet sometimes meandering film, Officer K must ultimately save Deckard from Wallace and his sidekick Luv. Thus, there’s an ensuing battle that takes place in a dark, wet, rainy set-piece usually reserved for only the tropiest of genre fare. And yes, I realize the end of the original “Blade Runner” was dark, wet, and rainy — mostly the entire movie was — but this ending lacked the same pathos. It needed more Roy Batty, Rutger Hauer’s iconic character from the original, or at least more Roy Batty-like things. We get no such “tears in rain” speech but we do get a nice musical callback.
This movie from a filmmaking perspective has already had enough effusive praise heaped upon it but I’ll pile on some more. Much like the original, it has some of the most compelling visuals you’ll see in any film in theaters or elsewhere to date. An extension of the world created in the first but more refined, starker, all taking place in a slightly snowier Los Angeles.
No one does bleak as beautifully as Denis Villeneuve (Sicaro, Arrival). Villeneuve brought his still, lingering cinematic sensibility to what could have been turned into a lesser, explosion-filled, GGI-fest of a big-budget studio feature. As for the work of cinematographer Roger Deakins, just give the man his damn Oscar and be done with it. Production Designer Dennis Gassner should also get some recognition for his stunning work here as well. Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch’s soundtrack is perfectly placed to capture all the bleakness that Villeneuve is laying down with more bombast and dissonance than the original film’s noir-inspired score.
