Movie Review : Blade Runner 2049

Movie Review : Blade Runner 2049

Sequel looks and sounds great, is competently acted, but doesn't quite convince with the power of its ideas and average writing

 

Image courtesy of Entertainment Weekly

*UPDATE :  After a suggestion from a friend ( thanks Tom Clive ) I checked out a short that was produced about one of the replicants, Sapper Morton. I have to say, for me it's a game changer. It shows the replicant in a very sympathetic light ; he's sensitive and brave ; more human than humans. Why Villeneuve chose to leave this out is beyond me. Instead he chose to focus on long visual shots in a 3 hour movie, rather than include 5 minutes that would actually make us care about the characters. Check out the short here. I particularly recommend watching it before the movie, if you have yet to see Blade Runner :

background on Sapper Morton  

https://youtu.be/aZ9Os8cP_gg

This is a first review of Blade Runner, and I likely will write another. Days after the first viewing I am still digesting this big film and trying to decide why I didn't like it as much I had hoped.

My initial reaction after watching was somewhat stupefied. The world of Blade Runner is so grand and convincing on the senses that you really do feel like you have been on a trip to an alien /future world. There had been occasional moments in this long film where I had been restless, but on the whole I was more than content to follow Ryan Goslings character as he attempted to unravel a conspiracy surrounding replicants and The Blackout; a past power failure and data loss which allows the story to work. This event seems a little too tidy of a plot device. More on that later. 

Blade Runners sets itself up as a mystery thriller thirty years after the original, with 'K' ( Gosling ) doing the job that Deckard used to do. The discovery and conspiracy that he stumbles across is not convincingly dealt with by his superior and leads to another convenient plot device. K is pulled in deeper to a potentially world changing or even world destroying revelation.

Driving the conspiracy is the successor to the Tyrell Corporation; the mysterious genius Wallace ( Jared Leto ) who has Carte Blanche it seems to produce replicants because i) he has shown he can make them reliably obedient, and ii) he happened to save the world with new GMO food in the wake of a prior environmental collapse. His power in this irritatingly vague political world is never made quite clear. Wallace's minion 'Luv' is the villain who faces off against K.

The big idea of the film is in essence the same as the last; what is a real person and how ethical is it to treat artificial persons as slaves? Though K's hologram girlfriend takes this a step further, the question is the same. The plot of the film reels us in gradually and enjoyably, but there is a question that niggled me as it progressed; why should I care? None of the characters are particularly likeable, though K has a loyal stoicism about him that begins to win you over. The bigger problem is, in the general hell that Earth has descended into (a grim, dark world of poverty and inequality) why should I care more about replicants than people? A Victorian like orphanage reveals that humanity has it almost as bad as replicants; absolute poverty reduces people to a situation almost akin to slavery. This is never quite true however, and even the most independent of replicants boasts as she beats another in a fight: 'I'm the best one!'. Her attachment to her master is all. The resolution of the plot mystery revolves around a similar theme. One message seems important but obvious; all living creatures seek love and approval, and it is something missing in this strange world almost devoid of families and children. The grim fight for survival has brutalised all, and perhaps the film serves to remind us that hardship is no excuse for exploiting others. Indeed, it even distracts us from the real issues. Wallace is obsessed with colonising new worlds, but despite his talents seems to have largely given up on this one where Earthlings seem to represent forgotten refugees. Should we care about these people, or despise their own savagery and complicity in the use of replicants ?

None of this is ever really made clear, as Blade Runner meanders to its plot finale (with more than a little convenience due to coincidences) and leaves us to draw our own conclusions.  Mine is this; individuals must be taken on their own merits; replicant, human or otherwise.  Perhaps that's just me (I’m apt to smirk when people ask me if I'm a 'dog or cat person' - it depends on the animal). Blade Runner grasps at classic but tired old themes in science fiction and philosophy - do we really have free will? Am I real?  When should an artificial person gain human rights? How much of my identity is based on memory ? There is now nothing original in these old questions, and no answers are provided. In one key moment, Deckard asserts : " I know what's real". Perhaps all the big questions are but a distraction and all that matters is the love people have, or should have for each other. That is its own reality. Is that what he means ? At the end of the film, the way seems to be left open for yet another sequel. Perhaps more will be resolved there.

Ultimately Blade Runner seems to have fallen into the trap that ensnared replicants ; can a feast of the senses compensate for some emptiness inside ? Watch for yourself and decide.

UPDATE WITH SPOILERS :

After having seen the film a second time, I do indeed have a more favourable opinion. I am now sure, seeing the similarities of the ending with the last film, that K dies. And perhaps, like the first film, the realisation is that saving life, and love, is what gives it meaning ( Hence Deckard's lucky escape ) . K is asked to kill Deckard, but instead saves him. He reflects on a key message given him by the replicant reistance ; sacrificing yourself for others (or at least 'dying for a great cause') makes you more human than anything. Like his police supervisor Madam, K shows loyalty to another that is not destructive. He chooses to save Deckard simply so that Deckard can be reunited with his daughter, and in doing so K becomes more human then anyone. It 's a simple message about humanity rather than a technological one, and suggests perhaps free will and concern for others is more important than whether someone is human or AI.