Distributed By: Sony Pictures Home Enteretainment
Production: Warner Bros, Columbia Pictures, Scott Free Productions
Director: Denis Villenuve
Writers: Hampton Fancher, Michael Green, Phillip K Dick
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Robin Wright, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Edward James Olmos, Jared Leto
Cert: 15
Running Time: 163 minutes

‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…’. And so, begins the end of one of the most sublime pieces of cinema history, Roy Batty’s dying words from our first encounter with replicants and Blade Runners set in the not so distant future of 2019. Cycle on thirty years in Blade Runner 2049 and Tyrell Corporation is no more, brought out and run by an egotistical megalomaniac called Wallace (Jared Leto). A man who is out of touch with reality but sincere in his belief in doing what is right for capitalism and replicants, oh and humans too, more or less. Mostly less. So, ‘Nothing that the God of biomechanics wouldn’t let you into heaven for.’

Wallace’s personal assistant, a meek looking NEXUS-9 female replicant called Luv, a suitable name because she doesn’t have any, and why should she; follows her bosses every order and is more than happy to dispatch those who get in her way, coolly and coldly, in a way Roy Batty would never have approved of. Roy’s was revenge, Luv’s commerce; ‘more human than human’, which sums up Blade Runner 2049 perfectly.

Ryan Gosling’s K, a replicant Blade Runner, stumbles across a hidden secret, the knowledge of where Deckard and Rachel went after those lift doors closed in the first film. And happy families may have worked for those two but not for anyone else in Blade Runner 2049.

It is easy to see why Blade Runner 2049 might not be preforming so well at the box office. Fans, mostly, a narrow-minded clique, who have an over attachment to the first Blade Runner film. And if Blade Runner 2049 has a problem, it has to be the baggage and the uber fans who will bad-mouth the film at every turn. Which is a unnecessary and a shame. Because Blade Runner 2049 is a good film, it’s a heartening film, full of reunions and reconciliations.

Ryan Gosling’s character K is the quintessential Phillip K Dick character, unassuming, struggling to do the right thing at the right time, constantly being served curve balls designed to make him question not just events but himself too. It’s a portrayal right out of the base material of the book for both films ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’.

But I guess, for those diehard fans all the great and astounding moments in Blade Runner 2049 ‘will be lost in time, like tears in rain…..’.

 

Editor and Reviewer: Steve Hooker