A sequel worthy of the original classic

Wait a minute. Please. When Blade Runner

2049 fades to black after a perfect last shot, wait a minute before you turn your phone back on and you head for the exit and return to the real world of the multiplex lobby and all that waits beyond.

Take a moment to absorb and interpret and appreciate the vibrant and gorgeous and sometimes brutal and mind-bending and occasionally incomprehensible hallucinatory epic that is

Blade Runner 2049, which stands with the likes of The Godfather Part II and Terminator 2 and Aliens as a sequel worthy of the original classic.

Ryan Gosling strikes just the right notes as the replicant hunter aka “blade runner” Officer K; Harrison Ford injects a layer of humanity and even wry humour into his portrayal of the jaded and surly Deckard; Robin Wright, Dave Bautista and Jared Leto, among others, excel in pivotal supporting roles, and Ana de Armas is a revelation as Officer K’s love interest, who isn’t human but is arguably the most human character.

The movie is set some three decades after the events depicted in Ridley Scott’s classic. Gosling is LAPD Officer KB36-3.7, aka K, a blade runner who tracks down and “retires”, aka kills, older model replicants that have gone off the grid.

Thing is, Officer K is himself a replicant, albeit a newer and more sophisticated model. He knows he’s a replicant. He knows his childhood memories are implanted because he was never actually a kid. Or was he? Officer K’s superior, Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright), treats Officer K as her favourite (albeit a favourite pet, of sorts), but his human colleagues on the force loathe this “skin job”, as one calls him, as do his neighbours. His only companion is a holographic creation known as Joi (de Armas), a flickering fantasy who cooks for K.

On one of K’s missions, he unearths evidence a replicant gave birth some 30 years ago, a discovery that will “break the world”, as Joshi puts it. She orders K to track down the child — who would be just about K’s age by now — and erase all traces of its existence.

Ah, but other forces are intent on finding this mysterious offspring as well.

Niander Wallace (Leto), who talks like a cult leader and has creepy, marble-like eyes, runs the Wallace Corp, which took over the manufacturing of replicants from Tyrell Corp. Wallace can’t manufacture enough replicants to fulfil his mad plan to take over the universe, so for years he’s been trying to create replicants that can bear offspring, with no success. When Wallace gets word there’s already such a being out there, he will stop at nothing to track it down.

Thus the wheels are set in motion, sending Officer K on an unforgettable journey that’s part futuristic noir mystery and part self-discovery.