BLADE RUNNER 2049
(R13, 164 mins) Directed by Denis Villeneuve Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett
Back in 1983, when I first saw Blade Runner as a callow, spotty and impressionable kid doing what I laughingly refer to as “growing up” in various damp dives in Hamilton, I thought it was pretty much the greatest film I’d ever seen.
To revisit the world of Blade Runner 30 years later – in both senses – is a risky proposition. It’s a film that actually deserves that wildly over-used accolade “iconic”. Without a director who truly understands and can expand on Ridley Scott’s film, and a script that can continue the story in a way that makes solid thematic and narrative sense, any sequel is going to be a clanging disappointment. And I reckon Blade
Runner 2049 gets it about three-quarters right. First, it really does look the part. The film is lovingly detailed, astonishingly lit and scored and designed in a way that manages to be both meticulous and pleasantly sparse.
We are – within the film’s own world – 30 years after Harrison Ford’s Deckard was running down a cadre of synthesised-human “replicants” and unexpectedly finding something that looked almost like love with Sean Young’s Rachel.
The world has gone through a catastrophe that has left much of it irradiated and barren. In Los Angeles, with the streets coated in a mixture of ash and snow that hints at an ongoing climactic disaster, young cop – and replicant – K (Ryan Gosling, perfectly cast) is on a routine “retirement” assignment when he stumbles across a hidden box of human bones. K and his boss (Robin Wright) uncover enough of the bones’ provenance to send K off on a mission that will eventually lead him to Deckard and a long-hidden secret, all while trying to evade the new corporate overlords who are the real government of the future.
It’s a serviceable yarn, with plenty of callbacks to the 1982 film to please the fans and enough of its own moves to gain a few new ones.
But “serviceable” isn’t really enough when you’re trying to revisit a film that sticks in the memory for its storytelling genius, as much as it does its action and design.
Over the course of a nearly three-hour running time, Blade Runner 2049 can’t help but sag, meander and waffle a lot more than it should.