If Blade Runner was interested in who can be truly considered human, and how that’s linked to our ability as a species to feel empathy for others, Blade Runner 2049 is more interested in the question of freedom, in a manner that recalls much recent blockbuster entertainment from Twin Peaks: The Return and Westworld to Alien: Covenant and even The Good Place. That last one is the most important for this film. What is the soul, and who has one? How necessary are bodies? Do we have free will, and if not, can we still call our feelings desires? Does it matter whether our memories are real? And what does it mean to be “free”? But the movie also stuffs in a lot of other Biblical references along with philosophical questions. (For what it’s worth, in this year’s Alien: Covenant, which has a story co-written by Green, Michael Fassbender plays a character who is explicitly modeled on the Miltonian Lucifer.)īlade Runner 2049 returns to those themes, with talk of angels now explicit. Warner Bros.īlade Runner, though complex, had a relatively lean concept at its core: Its villain (or is he?), the replicant Roy Batty (played by Rutger Hauer), is a pretty clear cipher for the Miltonian conception of Lucifer: created to be an angel in God’s service, then banished from his creator to serve humans in an off-world colony, only to rebel, “fall” back to earth, and wreak his rebellious vengeance against his creator - who also, in this formulation, happens to be man. Note: S ome very mild spoilers for Blade Runner 2049 follow. Blade Runner 2049 returns to the themes of its predecessor, but with less nuance And it’s the thematic material that suffers. But all the senses need to work in tandem, and in Blade Runner 2049 they fall out of sync. Much of cinema’s greatest sci-fi leans heavily on visuals for its storytelling, of course - Tarkovsky’s Stalker, Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner itself. Too many of its scenes seem invented as vehicles for cool images, without the latter also informing the former. The Blade Runner 2049 screenplay (co-written by Logan screenwriter Michael Green and a returning Fancher) doesn’t have the thematic or even structural clarity of its predecessor. Its score (from Benjamin Wallfisch and the ever-present Hans Zimmer, detectable because your chair shakes when the music plays) lacks the pristine transcendence of the original Vangelis score. But it’s not mere fan service the film tries very hard to sustain interest with new characters and developments that draw on the past without being handcuffed to it, throughout its sometimes ponderous 163-minute runtime.īut far too often that attempt to be interesting fails. A scene from Blade Runner 2049 Warner Bros.īlade Runner 2049 does its due diligence as a sequel, wrapping up some threads from the original film that may (or may not) satisfy some fans still puzzling over Blade Runner’s biggest open question. In this film he works with his frequent collaborator, the great cinematographer Roger Deakins, whose comically accomplished oeuvre and work in this film almost certainly guarantees him an Oscar nomination, if not the still-elusive Oscar itself. It’s the sort of original and stylish film that - if Hollywood is going to insist on resurrecting everything - is actually worth the film it’s printed on.Īnd it’s worth seeing on a big screen, because if there’s one thing Scott’s successor Denis Villeneuve knows how to do, it’s make a compelling image. If you are already inclined to see Blade Runner 2049, then go for it. Blade Runner 2049 is worth seeing, despite its faults And this leads to the inevitable question about Denis Villeneuve’s new film: Was it worth it? Even in a sequel-happy culture, the inevitable decision to make Blade Runner 2049 was gutsy. To follow that act requires considerable cojones, which might be why it took 35 years for a sequel to appear. The look of Blade Runner was intricately connected to its deep moral questioning, all set against an operatic score. It raised the question of whether our continuation could even be a good thing, and on whom our survival depends, themes that extend through everything from Battlestar Galactica to Wall-E. Blade Runner wasn’t content to just explore humanity - it aimed to make us, as audience members, question our own humanity by complicating our glib assumptions about our own superiority as a race. Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-markīlade Runner defined the visual vocabulary that would rule science fiction for a generation, but more importantly, it carved out an ethical and moral space for those visuals to operate within.
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