IT'S SHARPER
‘Blade Runner’ sequel outdoes original
FOR A BLEAK, dystopian future, it sure is a beautiful place to visit.
Director Denis Villeneuve has managed a miracle of creation worthy of the themes of “Blade Runner 2049.” He’s turned the long-gestating sequel to the beloved 1982 sci-fi film into a visual experience that transcends the original.
Set, appropriately enough, 35 years after the first movie, the new film stars Ryan Gosling as K, one of those blade runners roaming Los Angeles who spe- cialize in hunting down older models of replicants — bioengineered human slaves — that can’t match the newer versions that keep Earth running.
Not that there’s much left worth running, as the most privileged humans jettisoned this environmentally ravaged planet for space. The unfortunates left behind can at least lord over the “skin-jobs” who serve them.
And no one does more lording than Jared Leto as the head of the corporation at the top of the new world order. There are few flaws to be found in this scifi-high, but putting the Oscarwinner in a one-note role is sadly one of them.
Between cases, K lives a lonely existence, with only a Siri-like hologram for a girlfriend (Ana De Armas) for company — until he discovers a secret on a cold case that threatens their “world built on a wall separated by kind.”
That sets him off on a quest to find answers — and the one man who can provide them, former blade runner Rick Deckard, with Harrison Ford reprising his role from the original.
While it’s truly special to accompany Ford on his trip down memory lane — Han Solo in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and his whip-cracking archeologist in “Indiana Jones V” whenever that starts filming — he has ceded leading man status to Gosling. And the younger actor earns every bit of his screen time with an understated performance and solid action chops.
But the real heroes of the film are behind the camera. Villeneuve, who proved his flair for genre grandeur with last year’s “Arrival,” and director of photography Roger A. Deakins have crafted a masterpiece to watch — whether in the cyan neon bathed streets of Los Angeles or in an orange dusty desert wasteland. And like all of the director’s films, it sounds great.
With original “Blade Runner” producer Ridley Scott attached, there are homages to the first film without being overly reverential. Good thing. Because this sequel eclipses that adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel — “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” — which suffered from compromises made for the studio at the time.
The screenplay by Hampton Fancher (who co-wrote the original) and Michael Green give plenty of class-war themes to chew on over the film’s twohour, 43-minute running time. That might have been a little too long considering how overbaked the sequel’s third act feels toward the end. But that’s a small price to pay for the rest of the movie.
Do androids dream of electric sheep? Maybe. But science fiction-loving cinephiles have definitely been dreaming of a movie like “Blade Runner 2049” for years.