Susan Granger’s review of “Blade Runner 2049” (Warner Bros./Sony)
Although it cost $150+ million and brings back Harrison Ford (albeit not until too late), French/Canadian director Denis Villenueve’s gamble to revive “Blade Runner” hasn’t paid off.
First, it’s relevant that Ridley Scott’s 1982’s legendary neo-noir thriller wasn’t a big box-office success. Second, it’s now 35 years later, and many hardcore sci-fi fans who were dazzled by the original aren’t around anymore.
Set three decades into the future, the ominously bleak, dystopian Los Angeles cityscape with its constant rain and neon-lit grime is stunning.
After an upgraded Nexus 9 replicant LAPD Officer “K” (Ryan Gosling) hunts down and kills an outdated Nexus 8, Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista), he stumbles across a secret that his steely supervisor, Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright) fears will destroy the delicate balance between replicants and humans.
It seems that a previous generation of replicants were able to reproduce – and there’s a child out there to prove it: the offspring of the android Rachael (Sean Young) and Det. Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford).
Creepy robot-manufacturer Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) with his replicant Luv (Sally Hoecks) are determined to discover how the Tyrell Corporation (from the first film) made its androids capable of procreation, so he can use that technology to increase replicant production.
In the interim, “K” has embedded memories, which give him and others of his kind, the illusion of human experience yet keeping them subservient. While enduring his own existential crisis, K has a compliant AI companion, a hologram aptly named Joi (Ana de Armas), whom he thinks he “loves.”
Which poses the essential question: “Do machines have feelings?”
Riffing on Philip K. Dick’s characters from “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” co-screenwriters Hampton Fancher and Michael Green support Denis Villenueve’s (“Arrival”) vision which consistently emphasizes the gritty style/production design over the slow-paced story.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Blade Runner 2049” is a visually striking, surreal 6, perhaps earning cinematographer Roger A. Deakins his 14th Oscar nomination and first Academy Award.
