Based upon characters and situations from Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Story by Hampton Fancer
Screenplay Written by Hampton Fancer & Michael Green
Executive Producer Ridley Scott
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
**** (four stars)
RATED R
One of the most disturbingly risky and audacious sequences that I think that I have ever seen within a movie arrived in Steven Spielberg's "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" (2001), his grippingly dark, adult fable about a synthetic boy (an outstanding Haley Joel Osment) programmed with the ability to love and who essentially spends eternity discovering what it means to be human as well as attempting to finally have the love for his Mother reciprocated back to himself.
Yet, what was so gravely striking about the film's final sections, all of which occurs in an irrevocably altered post-climate change affected Earth, is the sequence that takes place 2000 years after the extinction of all human life. In a film that had already demanded so much of the audience's willingness to follow this particularly grim tale, to ask viewers to continue to be invested in an experience that had extinguished human beings and therefore, evolved beyond humanity while also discerning ways to uphold humanity was undeniably polarizing to say the least. Now, that we have arrived with "Blade Runner 2049," I would not be the least bit surprised if those feelings of audience polarization will rise once again.
Dear readers, I am of the age where I would have been old enough to have experienced Ridley Scott's iconic science-fiction thriller "Blade Runner" (1982) upon its initial release. As a matter of fact, I was all of 13 years old, already a science-fiction fan and more than eager to see any new vision that was ready to hit the silver screen. While my overall impression of the film at that time was not fully formulated due to its adult driven themes and ambiguities, it went without question whatsoever that I had witnessed a film unlike any other that had preceded it--and that even included both George Lucas' "Star Wars" (1977) plus Lucas and Irvin Kershner's "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980), as those films were truly fantastical fairy tales that happened to be set in a galaxy far, far away.
Ridley Scott's"Blade Runner," while set in the year of 2019--which at the time sounded like a million light years away from 1982--was a film that had its feet firmly planted on Earth, with its evocative future vision that found the Los Angeles of the future drenched in constant neon accented rainfall, an over-populated landscape that had veered demonstrably Asian, as well as a disheartening increase in commercial advertisements. As for the more fantastical elements, albeit ones designed to force us to take a hard gaze at our own relationships with our own humanity and inhumanity, Scott gave us the "replicants," synthetic beings from the Tyrell Corporation that were devised as being slave labor that was "more human than human," an element that dangerously came to pass as the four year life spans of each replicant began to announce themselves in violent revolts, forcing them to be "retired" by police detectives known as the titular "blade runners."
While not a box office success at the time, "Blade Runner" has more than deservedly earned its massive reputation as being one of the most influential science-fiction films ever made. With regards to the cinematography, special effects, an aesthetic that splendidly merged 1940's film noir with the futuristic, there simply was not a film that looked or felt anything like "Blade Runner," and with the juggernaut of a film score by Vangelis, there also just was not any film anywhere that sounded remotely like "Blade Runner" either.
Throughout the years, I have seen "Blade Runner" countless times and truth be told, I have not been awaiting a sequel to the film at all primarily because in its own melancholic dreamlike way, the film felt complete as is. But that being said, the original film--especially with the superior Director's Cut--was certainly open ended enough thematically and conceptually, that any further installments felt to be more than possible and perhaps, even justified. Thankfully, with "Blade Runner 2049," Executive Produced by Ridley Scott and directed astoundingly by Denis Villeneuve, already riding high after the brilliance of his previous film "Arrival" (2016), we have the rare sequel that more than honors the previous installment as well as Philip K. Dick's source material.
Denis Villeneuve's "Blade Runner 2049" grandly builds, expands, and enhances all that we know about the futuristic existential journeys of human beings and replicants and creates an experience that is undeniably mountainous in its scope and impact. Without hyperbole, Denis Villeneuve is a creative force to be reckoned with and then some as his vision has elicited something that could only be described as "awesome." Trust me, dear readers, "Blade Runner 2049" is a voluminous experience simultaneously designed to enthrall, disturb, provoke, challenge and saturate all of your senses.
Picking up 30 years after the events of the first film, with newer, obedient model replicants now integrated into society, "Blade Runner 2049" stars Ryan Gosling as K, a replicant blade runner for the LAPD, who is assigned to hunt down and "retire" rogue older modeled replicants as he investigates the growing replicant freedom movement. Discriminated against by his human co-workers (often being referred to with the pejorative "skin job"), K returns home each night to the comforts of his holographic girlfriend Joi (Ana de Armas), a product of the Wallace Corporation, the company that has usurped the now bankrupt Tyrell Corporation and is led by the blind inventor cum messianic meanufactuer Niander Wallace (Jared Leto).
Upon "retiring" a rogue replicant connected to the freedom movement, K discovers a box which contains what appears to be human remains inside. The contents of that very box propels K into an odyssey which not only threatens the balance of power between humans and replicants, but also into an existential crisis based in lost dreams, memories that may be real or implanted, identities and self-perceptions that may not be what was once considered to be true and yes indeed, the whereabouts of Detective Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), long gone for 30 years.
Denis Villeneuve's "Blade Runner 2049" is a triumph of ambition, artistry and most purposeful ambiguity. On a purely technical level, you would be hard pressed to find another film released this year (or possibly within the last several years) that is this visually dynamic as Villeneuve and the extraordinary Cinematographer Roger Deakins have fashioned a sublime collection of dreamworld imagery and dazzling sequences that more than honors all that Ridley Scott devised in the original film--in fact, I think Villeneuve and Deakins utilized Scott's work as a brilliant leaping off point, devising the imaginary future of an imaginary future world. The effect is often mind boggling in its execution.
Additionally, Composer Hans Zimmer is on a creative role!!! Following his incredible, downright anxiety inducing score for Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk," Zimmer, working in collaboration with Composer Benjamin Wallfisch, has devised a film score that fully honors the innovation and haunting beauty of Vangelis' score to the original film by building and expanding upon it, now creating something that sounds like what one friend described as "metallic whale songs." While that may sound completely unpleasant to some of you, for me, the tactic worked sensationally and the sound worked in full tandem with the visuals, both enhancing each other to their elegant breaking point. As far as I am concerned, come Awards season, if Roger Deakins and the team of Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch are not recognized, cinematic crimes would be more than apparent.
With all of the technical and aesthetic qualities in place, Denis Villeneuve's "Blade Runner 2049" certainly treasures Scott's (and Vangelis') film noir/Fritz Lang qualities as the gracefully flying automobiles and the constant rainfall continue as conceptual touchstones for the story. But Villeneuve extends himself from Scott's vision by taking what was once intimate in its impressionism and stretching the canvas to create something that is essentially operatic in style and most importantly, the story, themes and concepts.
Returning to the opening of this posting regarding Steven Spielberg's "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence," I would not be surprised to find movie going audiences as equally polarized in their opinions towards "Blade Runner 2049" as they were for Spielberg's opus. Denis Villeneuve has certainly not made his motion picture an easy ride for the audience, so to speak, as the film is not a "turn your brain off and watch the pretty pictures" experience. "Blade Runner 2049" demands that its audience pay attention and have a visceral and cerebral relationship with the experience as it is clearly designed to be something to fully immerse oneself inside of. Yet, the film is populated with a collective of characters, several of which may or may not even be human but are all upon their individual quests to devise what humanity (and therefore, inhumanity) may represent.
In addition to the replicant blade runner K, his love interest is a hologram, who in one striking sequence merges herself with a flesh and blood person in order to experience a sense of sexual intercourse with K. Another stunning section set within the post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, all bathed in clouds of golden dust and augmented by bizarre Kubrick-ian erotic sky scraping statues, finds K surrounded by human artifacts like jukeboxes and jittery holograms of Elvis Presley and dancing girls on stage. Yet, what of the toy horse that K discovers? Could that have emerged from a real or implanted memory or else from some far away dream that may or may not have been his own?
With the original film, at least within the Director's Cut version, Ridley Scott created the possibility that the human detective of Rick Deckard just may have indeed been a replicant, which in turn asks of all of us in the audience if indeed we are all replicants. This existential quandary also sits at the heart of "Blade Runner 2049" with the film's primary characters but additionally, I think that Villeneuve has also created a certain cultural commentary that questions the status of reality itself or at least our perception of reality as we are living our lives increasingly inside of a virtual world or worlds with our smartphones, mobile devices and social media.
Villeneuve's dreamworld aesthetic and measured pacing also contributes to the blurring of reality, dreams and unreliable memories, which at times over the course of this nearly three hour film provides fits and starts that are lulling and jarring--as if rapidly falling out of one dream and crashing into the next. From a character standpoint, I also feel that by blurring the identities of his cast in regards to whether they are human, replicant or otherwise, we are then further forced to ask of ourselves what is human in the first place and furthermore, if we can find it within ourselves to care for a figure who is a hologram more than an actual human, then what indeed is humanity itself?
That is the heart is the finest science-fiction as far as I am concerned: the posing of the eternal questions to explore and debate over and again and decidedly not how many alien ships can be destroyed. Yes, there is quite a bit of bang for the buck in "Blade Runner 2049," but this is a film of atmosphere presented with the utmost artistry.
At this time, I have to give credit to Ryan Gosling for the superior quality of his performance as he is a fine actor, who like Emma Stone, seems to have become more than a little self-aware, therefore diminishing the fullness of his acting. As K, Gosling is perfectly cast as his appearance looks to be a hair synthetic, much like his surroundings, which makes his crisis of self all the more compelling. As for Harrison Ford, what a pleasure it was to witness him eliciting a tough, gritty, deeply haunted performance that truly fills in considerable gaps in the 30 years between the events of the first and current films. As with his reprise of Han Solo in J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars: Episode VII-The Force Awakens" (2015), it was wonderful to see Ford not only revisit a character he invented with a sense of newfound gravitas but to elicit a rich performance again, the kind of which has been rare in recent years.
Denis Villeneuve's "Blade Runner 2049" for all of its razzle dazzle is not a film that is designed to shatter box office records, much as it was with the original film. But, I do think that if given an honest chance and opportunity, movie goers will find themselves enveloped in a cinematic universe unlike any other, one that will insinuate itself into your subconscious and alter your perceptions. Again, this film represents the finest of what we have witnessed at the movies in 2017, films that adhere to a artistic vision rather than box office. What Villeneuve has created is no mere cash grab but a work of art that is indeed built to last.
SAVAGE POSTSCRIPT
While my rating of the film is clearly highly recommended, I do have to warn you that the sound mix of "Blade Runner 2049" is EXTREMELY LOUD!!!! I spent much of the film with my fingers over my ears as the sonics were ear shattering.
This film is designed to be seen and experienced on the large screen but you may wish to take some ear plugs.
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