The new ‘Blade Runner’ cuts even deeper
Stunning follow-up perfects the original
Arrival, easily the best film of
2016, only seemed to be director Denis Villeneuve’s signature sci-fi project. Blade Runner 2049, the best film so far this year, cements him as a bona fide icon of the genre.
Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic Blade Runner popularized the cyberpunk movement (a gritty mix of neo-noir and hardcore sci-fi) back in the day, but 2049 ( eeee out of four; rated R; in theaters Friday) perfects it. Super-stylish and deeply human — even with androids and holograms around — the spectacular follow-up takes the detective story of the first film and turns it into a grand mythology of identity, memory, creation and revolution.
Flying cars, brilliantly lit metropolises and high-tech bioengineered beings known as replicants are still core to the series, as are the LAPD replicant hunters known as blade runners. Thirty years after Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) shut down four illegal replicants, Officer K (Ryan Gosling) is tasked with “retiring ” (aka destroying) older models while their upgraded brethren play various roles in society, many of them as slave labor.
K’s latest assignment involves confronting an outdated replicant (Dave Bautista in a small but memorable role), and while on the case he uncovers a buried box that presents an impossibility in replicant science, something that could spark a war between replicants and mankind. (At the risk of spoilers, let’s just say it is huge.) He and his boss (Robin Wright) agree to keep the discovery on the down-low — “This could break the world, K,” she tells him — though it doesn’t take long before replicant manufacturer Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), a rich industrialist who pretty much saved civilization some years before, gets wind of it.
The result is a game of catand-mouse between K and Wallace’s right-hand woman, a ruthless Terminator-type replicant named Luv (Sylvia Hoeks). K has to come to grips with his childhood, finds he has an important role to play in the changing human/replicant relations, and seeks out Deckard, who is still haunted by the events of the original film.
The new Blade Runner amazes because every aspect is top-notch. The cast is just as exceptional: K is Gosling ’s most powerful role to date, and Ford adds gravitas and a fitting sadness to the aging Deckard.
The first Blade Runner influenced a generation of filmmakers and films; 2049 is the rare sequel that exceeds the original. It will wow geeks and mainstream viewers alike — so much so we probably won’t have to wait
35 years for another one.