Blade Runner 2049 Review

Blade Runner 2049 is directed by Dennis Villeneuve and stars Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford,, Ana de Armas, Robin Wright, Sylvia Hoeks, Mackenzie Davis, Jared Leto and Dave Bautista. Set 30 years after the original, the film follows LAPD cop K (Gosling) unearthing a shattering mystery.
In the way critics and audiences used to look at Scorsese, Spielberg and Kubrick as a source of quality, entertaining and groundbreaking movies, so to will modern critics and audiences look at Christopher Nolan and Dennis Villeneuve in the same light. Despite the circulating articles that label Hollywood as 'running out of originality and brilliance' in the swaths of recyclable blockbusters, there comes the occasional film that will leave viewers stunned and reignite the industry. In more recent memory, 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road is one of those films, whilst Nolan's Dunkirk back in July is another; breathtaking visual tour de force films that make money and gain Oscar nominations. Blade Runner 2049 is another of those films, and Villeneuve (after the gripping Prisoners, the murky Sicario and the intellectually stimulating Arrival) has now established himself as his own brand of reliable filmmaking.
On paper, the idea of filming a sequel to a 1982 sci-fi film that bombed on release and took 20 years to finally enter 'masterpiece' status seems absurd. How can you improve on a film that many consider perfect? Villeneuve found the answer in this film. Set in 2049, 30 years after Deckard (Ford) hunted down six AWOL replicants, the world has progressed in sorts. Using technology from the first film and enhancing it by three decades, Villeneuve revives the LA setting with careful detail and visual splendor: huge virtual holograms of women parade the streets and buildings of the excessively urbanised city, lit up by the broad adverts of Sony and the pulsing lights of the city streets below whilst de Armas plays Joi, a mass-produced, photo realistic girlfriend for K, the central blade runner of the story. Joi can adapt her appearance to her lover's mood and is stored into what looks like an Amazon Fire Stick. The visual majesty of the film alone is worth an IMAX ticket; a particular 'merging' scene is beautifully odd and artistically unprecedented on the big screen. The looming sea walls, the dust blown deserts of Las Vegas and, of course, the rain ensure Blade Runner 2049 to be unlike any film and whilst the production design is lavish and biblical in scale, it is ace cinematographer Roger Deakins who is the true visual architect. 13 Oscar nominations and 0 wins may earn him the 'sympathy' Oscar a la Leonardo DiCaprio, but this truly is one of the most beautifully caught films and Deakins' opening shots (combined with the reverberating synth of the film's score) is a prologue to a story that is as much about science fiction as it is about showcasing the sheer range of his cinematography.
The less said about the story the better (not because it's awful but rather because it is best to know nothing going in at all) but much like the mystery of Villeneuve's Prisoners, it favours slow, atmospheric tension and the odd explosive twist.
Gosling as K (a nod to Phillip K Dick, the author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? of which the original film is based) is superb casting: his demeanor switching from unfazed to the middle of an existential crisis in moments. After his break from acting in 2013, Gosling has now selected some great roles and applied himself at his very best to all of them (The Big Short, The Nice Guys and La La Land) so his time for an Academy Award is imminent.
Elsewhere, Ford as Rick Deckard delivers an emotional, nuanced performance that ranks among his best. Unlike his fan service appearance in The Force Awakens as another of his iconic characters, Ford's appearance here is heartfelt and subtle. The female members of the cast also enjoy a wide range of roles; from Robin Wright's tough police chief to Hoeks' psychotic replicant killer, the role of women in this 'men's' world is necessary and progressive. Jared Leto fills in yet another weird role as Niander Wallace, a replicant manufacturer seeking to increase his slave work force. His looming headquarters echo the vast Pyramids of Giza, an intentional design to show the power of a slave work force. This is a recurring theme: K visits an orphanage in which children are forced to work whilst his journey to Las Vegas includes a confrontation with a hive of bees. K's reaction is that of surprise and longing that life is still enduring, but when he moves his hand inside the hive and pulls it out, a lot more can be interpreted. The bees are a work force, united together to produce something which will be taken from them by a superior being (K), who does minimal work and receives minimal pain in doing so. This is paralleling Wallace and his replicant slave work and Villeneuve is painting androids as capable of displaying more emotion and inner strength than their human makers. Likewise, when Robin Wright's Joshi tells K that he works better without a soul, it argues that does having a soul truly make you superior? Much like the original, the intelligent script raises questions and answers them to a degree which leaves the audience to come to their own conclusions.
Yet Blade Runner 2049 doesn't escape scrutiny; its 163 minute length is staggering, taking its time to introduce the story and characters as an art film should. But its short bursts of action can't sustain its length on their own. The film also repeats previously said lines to tell the audience what is running through K's head which contradicts the rest of the film's high respect for audience intellect. These faults don't compromise the movie and, as the most expensive art film ever produced, Blade Runner 2049 is a feast for the eyes and ears, as well as a challenger of the brain. What more could you ask Hollywood for?