List the obligatory terms you've seen in all articles about the original Blade Runner -- cyberpunk, dystopian future, neon wasteland, existential noir, cerebral deliberation, gorgeous visuals, brutalist design, Sean Young -- and they're still applicable to the rebooted Blade Runner 2049. You may add a few more: glum, long, Hans Zimmer and Ryan Gosling, wandering the bleak, rain-swept Los Angeles and pondering the deep question: Do androids dream of electric sheep? And also: Do replicants make babies?
The new film is directed by Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Sicario, Prisoners), who, like Christopher Nolan, is a filmmaker who strives for gravity and grandeur in the somewhat pulpy genre sources. Most of the credit here, I think, should go to Roger Deakins, the cinematographer. Blade Runner 2049 is that beautiful mongrel of blockbuster-ish ambition and half-hearted arthouse construction, a sci-fi drama that plays for nearly three hours with a lot of dramatic pauses, punctuated by some bombs, aerial pursuits, Hans Zimmer's sonic pounding, and robotic scuffles to amp up the pulse. For fans of the original, this should be enough to satisfy your soul (and nostalgia). For a new generation of viewers, the deliberate pacing will be a challenge, and in the end it's Deakins' framing, perspective and wondrous lighting that will carry them through.
The original 1982 film by Ridley Scott is often said to be something that "came ahead of its time". A compliment, of course, or a consolation for a movie that was a commercial disappointment and yet grew into a cult object. That 35-year-old film remains seductive even today because of its inner befuddlement -- Scott would tinker with it and released a director's version, in turn highlighting that initial befuddlement even further. The new film, on the contrary, is conscious of the story it wants to tell and the message it wants to impart. Which means it won't stick around in your head for much too long -- except, again, when you think back on the visuals (I saw it on IMAX 3D).
Loosely (very loosely) adapted from Philip K. Dick's story Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, Blade Runner 2049 fleshes out the book's central metaphor: in a world where humans create replicants -- lifelike robots put to work as slaves -- what makes humans human and androids, well, human? What's real and what's manufactured? And how can we tell the differences? Is having a soul that necessary? They're all deep and philosophically alluring. They're also questions asked before (and sometimes better) in many other novels and movies, from Solaris to 2001: A Space Odyssey, from A.I. Artificial Intelligence To Under The Skin, from Asimov to Small Wonder.
Gosling plays K (from Philip K. Dick?), a sad-eyed Blade Runner, policeman whose job is to retire -- kill -- outdated replicants that may pose a threat to the stability of the system. In short, a slave hunter deployed to nip in the bud slave revolt. In the original film, the big debate is whether Officer Deckard (Harrison Ford), a Blade Runner, is a replicant himself.
In 2049, it's spelt out clearly that K is a replicant, and thus he's regarded as a traitor among his own kind while the humans sneer at him as a fake.
It turns out that K, and in fact most replicants, dream of becoming human. He longs to be real. The story, which takes place 30 years after the Ridley Scott film, involves K's investigation into the existence of a baby born from a female replicant, an anomaly that would destroy the social construct of that future world. K's boss, Lt Joshi (Robin Wright), wants to locate the baby, so does Niander Wallace (Jared Leto, trying hard not to come off as a parody of his mad villain typecasting), the tycoon of the corporation that manufactures replicants. Lounging in his futuristic Zen garden, Wallace pontificates on the future of mankind: by building something resembling life, this man is playing God (it's so literal), and now he dispatches his "angel" (Sylvia Hoeks) to shadow K's pursuit.
While the Scott film is trippy, Villeneuve's reboot feels almost nerdy. It wants to underline the loneliness of K, a soulless creature with a soulful longing, and the film strives to achieve that mainly through the casting of Gosling. Now I always feel that the actor is most impressive in comedy, where his boyish appeal is unmistakable (The Nice Guys, for instance, or even La La Land), but Gosling has made a career choice playing tortured, brutalised souls trapped in vast, hopeless cityscapes (Drive, Only God Forgives, and here). K is vacant, lost, awkward, and Blade Runner 2049 finds its flesh and blood -- and in effect, the longed-for soul -- when Ford appears, all wrinkles and sweat, a radioactive leftover in the nuclear desert. It's pretty obvious: if the replicant can become human, it's Deckard, not K, who'll pull off that existential feat.
Building on the original, Deakins' imagery is stunning without being flamboyant (as opposed to, say, the recent Ghost In The Shell, which is almost a gaudy Xerox of the original Blade Runner). You'll see enough of the signature hologram women and advertisement signs, and they feel more immersive this time, including the character of Joi (Ana De Armas), as K's virtual girlfriend and a symbol of hollow fantasy.
But Deakins also expands on that futuristic shorthand by giving us the gauzy orange of an abandoned city, a savage junkyard beyond LA, and the cavernous headquarters of Wallace's corporation, rippling with delicious shadows, where Japanese minimalism turns surreal and sinister.
To prove that a person is a person and not a replicant, the Blade Runner would run a test on him or her. Will this reboot past that test? As long as you keep your eyes wide open, yes. But after the light comes on, the soul searching continues elsewhere.
Blade Runner 2049
Starring Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Jared Leto, Robin Wright, Sylvia Hoeks Directed by Denis Villeneuve
