Movie Review - Blade Runner 2049
You won’t get it if you show up to watch just another Hollywood blockbuster, you have to truly see this movie.
I am not a movie reviewer and to be honest my husband hates watching movies with me. He is tired of my commentary about lighting, inconsistency of story, bad acting, dead end story twists and the list goes one. It also doesn’t help that over the past 15 year or so I can honestly say I’m painfully underwhelmed by Hollywood.
As I was just about to give up, comes a movie that leaves me open mouthed and wide eyed. Before I tell you all about why let me begin by confessing I almost didn’t watch it.
Hubby said "Blade Runner is in the cinemas want to go watch?" Before he uttered the words I responded with “not in a million billion years!”
Why you ask?
Well If I could describe it in two words it would be “Year 12”. Blade Runner was the lucky pick for a year long movie review bonanza in my last year of high school, so much so that the movie has lost all meaning to me.
Blade Runner was made for teaching kids how to critic film. You could hypothesise anything and be correct and depending on the hypothesis the movie can take on a whole new meaning.
After some thought I decided to watch this film after all. I thought it would be fun to see which of our hypothesis about Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) turned out to be correct. Fast forward to Sunday night Gold Class 8:45pm screening of Blade Runner 2049. It had to be in Gold Class as this movie goes for an epic 163 minutes.
Yes you are reading that right 17 minutes shy of 3 hours.
Yet it has been one of the best 163 minutes spent watching a movie in over 15 years.
Blade Runner 2049 takes place 35 years after the original movie where the ‘bioengineered’ humans called replicants have been integrated into society. Where Rick Deckard was hunting down rogue replicants in 2019, K (the LAPDs Blade Runner) is hunting down “retired” rogue older models in 2049.
K (Ryan Gosling) is a newer replicant model designed to obey, and the story kicks off with a completed mission to retire rouge replicant Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista). A seemingly standard mission sets off a series of events that push K to question his obedience to carry out orders as a blade runner.
If you have seen the original movie you’ll notice that the concept behind the story line is very similar, i.e. are replicants just like humans?
I LOVED this movie!!!
First and foremost this is an original movie, no book adaptation!
That is very important to note as 90% of movies out of hollywood are badly made book adaptations. This is pure creativity the old fashioned way, writing the a screenplay for the purpose of making a movie and in this case this was a well rounded script. (by Hampton Fancher & Michael Green)
The dialogue was well crafted and I felt like every word uttered had it’s place and purpose. As this is a spoiler free review I won’t analyse of of the quotes but here are my favourite:
K - I have memories, but I can’t tell if they are real
Wallace - All the courage in the world cannot alter fact
Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright)- The World is built in a wall that separates kind. Tell either side there’s no wall…You bought a war.
Moving on to the story and for a surprisingly pleasant change this was a well rounded story. Each thread of the original movie was woven into this one ensuring flow and cohesion. There were no dead end plots, everything flowed well and drifted all aspects of the story to the development of the ending.
Consider again that this was an almost 3 hour movie and not one plot piece was random!
And finally to the cinematography (by Roger Deakins) and the aesthetic of this movie was exquisite!
The play of light and shade and colour was delectable…. yes I said delectable. The tone of each scene was set by a sophisticated play of lite. The one scene that is imprinted in my mind is where Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) comes up to the alcove to talk to Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), I love the play between light and shadow and the emotion it evokes in you. It isn’t until that scene where you make your mind up about Luv and her character. IE is she light or dark, are her intentions good or bad?
This movie is NOT for every one. You won’t get it if you show up to watch just another Hollywood blockbuster, you have to truly see this movie. The intent behind every word and every shadow thrown, nothing about this movie was accidental.
It was made with intent!