This review is admittedly late. I don’t go to see movies in the theater anymore, so I only recently saw Blade Runner 2049 at the behest of a buddy now that it’s out on home video.
All of the popular YouTube film critics have already thrown their two cents in on this movie. The impression I got from the usual pundits’ reviews, in aggregate, is that this movie is pretty, has depth–or at least pretensions of depth, and features some nifty action scenes. The main flaw most critics point to is that the whole affair is rather superfluous.
I must concur. The original Blade Runner explored its themes so thoroughly that there wasn’t much left for a sequel to say.
Now that I’ve waded through the whole picture–which my buddy failed to do; he fell asleep, something he’s never done during a move–my conclusion is that Blade Runner 2049 is an attempt to tell a William Gibson story set in the world of a Philip K. Dick novel. You can tell because, like a typical Gibson story, this movie is long on plot and light on story.
Indirect spoilers ahead.
The more I’ve thought about Blade Runner 2049, the more I’ve come to discern that it bears many of the same failings as Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Bear with me for a minute. You have the character of K–not the one from Men in Black, the one played by Ryan Gosling. He’s a replicant blade runner tasked with hunting down other replicants. His coworkers treat him like a household appliance, he lives in a dreary apartment, and his only friend is a hologram. His life sucks, but he’s not allowed to notice.
As a mystery arising from a seemingly routine case spurs a high stakes investigation, K begins entertaining a glimmer of hope that he might not be a disposable nobody after all. He may, in fact, be one of the most important people on earth. But of greater interest to our terminally lonely blade runner is the possibility that he may have been loved once.
Then K has the rug unceremoniously yanked out from under him. His only hope was just a ruse; the plot inconsistencies handwaved away with a throwaway line of dialogue. He’s immediately asked to murder an innocent man–a job that would’ve carried far more dramatic weight had K’s false hopes about his own past been true.
There’s a car chase, a shootout, and a knife fight. Our hero spares the man he was urged to kill before dying disgraced, friendless, and jobless in the cold. Despite a lot of big talk about a replicant revolt, K’s sacrifice accomplishes nothing except for giving a woman he’d met only once the chance to meet her absentee father. Yet even that act of kindness gravely endangers the aforementioned uprising.
Like Rey from Star Wars, K turns out to be a nobody who comes from nowhere, accomplishes nothing, and goes nowhere. Critics have stated that both characters share the same arc: They are nonentities who come to terms with that fact and finally embrace it.
Unlike Rey, K forfeits his life in the course of his daring exploits. The purpose of his lonely, alienated life is to help a strange woman discover her true identity, after which the world has no further use for him, and he summarily dies.
If I were the kind who thought that Hollywood had lost the ability to tell a coherent story and was henceforth only capable of churning out intersectionalist propaganda, I might detect a not-so-subtle message in K’s tragic life and ignominious end.
There was an interview where Harrison Ford was asked: Is it your goal to destroy every classic character you've done in a reboot?
Answer: YES!
He's 3 for 3.
I never bothered seeing it for aesthetic reasons.
Cyberpunk has to look gritty and, like all modern Hollywood products, this movie is polished to a shine.
Blade Runner/DADOES? is a detective noir and there is no noir influence here. It's more or less a modern Marvel movie in plot.
There's also the fact that it's yet another unnecessary sequel because Hollywood has no new ideas and I refuse to contribute to their laziness.
Speaking of which, have you seen Bright yet? I would be curious to see your thoughts on it paired with the reaction to Last Jedi. Never before has there been such a clear divide between audience and critics.
Solid points.
In answer to your question, yes, I did recently watch Bright. I'll get around to reviewing it soon.
Brian
nobody who comes from nowhere, accomplishes nothing, and goes nowhere.
A very perceptive summary of the vulgar Satreism that pervades culture.
To summarize: what's the point then of making this movie? It's the most despicable ripoff imaginable. Entertaining you and reflecting on the human condition is….nothing.absolutely nothing.
Smacks of the dark lord's machinations.
No wonder regular people recoil and revolt from such cultural
xavier
Honestly I thought it was pretty decent actually. I liked it way more than Last Jedi.
BR 2049 had its moments. Doesn't hold a candle to the original, though.