Review: Blade Runner 2049
Blade Runner 2049 is the sequel to the 1982 Ridley Scott masterpiece that takes place 30 years later and it truly lives up to the original.
Plot:
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1856101/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl
In my opinion, the Blade Runner 2049 succeeds in all aspects of the movie. The movie on the one hand captures the atmosphere and feel of the original while also expanding on the mythology of the universe.
The story early on introduces a conflict that manages to make everything that happened in the first movie still relevant, while giving it a completely new angle, so that the movie becomes its own story, not just more of the first one. The way this hook is explored over the cause of the story and what it does to the characters involved is fantastic. The story doesn’t explain everything, but sometimes just gives hints the answers of certain questions, so just like in the first Blade runner, there is a lot to speculate and dissect.
The movie overall is very deliberately (some would say slow) paced. The movie takes a lot of time to unfold certain scenes and feels slow in some parts, which is not necessary a terrible thing and consistent with the first Blade Runner.
But Blade Runner 2049 is very long, with 164 mins of runtime, and (while not for me) combined with the slow pacing can feel boring and too long to some viewers who aren’t hooked by the story.
On the other side, the ending feels a bit rushed. When the movie approaches the end, it picks up pace and from a certain moment of exposition and moves very fast to the final confrontation and the ending. With that, Blade Runner 2049 leaves some story threads unsolved, which might be explored in further movies or just be left untold.
The seconds wonderful thing is the visuals and cinematography. The movie looks just beautiful. The CGI, the costumes, the camera angles, everything screams Blade Runner. Cinematographer Roger Deakins really outdid himself once more. While the technology is more advanced than it was 30 years ago (in the movie as in the real world) all the new technology feels and looks like a natural progression from the Blade runner in 2019.
Complementing the visuals are the stunning music and sound scenery by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch. Again, the music is, while true to the original, a natural progression that represents the time that has pasted.
The acting is the third thing I want to point out. Especially the performances of Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford gives an impressive performance. So far going back to his old roles has really paid off. He is great in Star Wars and great in this movie. It really makes me look forwards to that new Indiana Jones movie.
Ryan Gosling however is the standout in this movie. He plays his, in a way emotionally loaded, character and his progression throughout the movie stunning. The other performances are good as well. Dave Batista gives a nice, but short, serious performance, showing that he is capable of more than the funny Drex in Guardians of the Galaxy.
Jared Leto as the new mastermind Wallace as the antagonist, is probably the most divisive. He is lofty and celestial. For some he is overacting and comical in the way he was as the Joker in Suicide Squad. To others he is wrapped in his god-complex, and deliberately gives himself an inhuman and divine aura.
Denis Villeneuve directed his actors and actresses to perfection. His way of creating tension and excitement in slow scenes in movies like “The Arrival” and “Sicario” fits perfectly to the Blade Runner franchise and turns what could have been a boring disaster into a masterpiece. With this movie he has, to me, fully established himself as one of the greatest directors working today.
While there are things you can criticize about this movie, they are mere nitpicks to. I fully enjoy this movie. I hope as much as the first Blade Runner has inspired generations of filmmakers, this movie will inspire and motivate future generation of filmmaker.
My rating: 10/10
