Blade Runner 2049
2017
D: Denis Villeneuve
**********
Pros: Cinematography, Plot, Acting, Score
Cons: Plot interferes with first movie’s
When I heard about an upcoming sequel to Blade Runner, I was skeptical as it seemed to be a bad idea: a 30-year sequel to a respected piece of cinema that stood on its own merits. Turning a great movie into a franchise is usually a cynical cash grab that threatens diminish the work’s appeal. However, I became more optimistic upon learning of the people making it. Denis Villeneuve had already secured a reputation as one of our best current directors, Hans Zimmer was doing the score (mostly modifications of Vangelis’ original), and legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins was also part of the project, for which he won his long-overdue Oscar. Another good omen came with the casting of Ryan Gosling. While he’s very effective at playing stoic and occasionally intense characters, his primary strength is his ability to pick good movies; it’s almost always a good sign when he’s involved. It’s a bit sad that his demeanor’s relatability to introverts has turned into a meme.
Gosling plays K, a Nexus-9 replicant Blade Runner operating in Los Angeles 30 years after the events of the first movie. In the interim, a massive technology blackout has occurred, justifying the lack of records on the previous movie's plot while explaining the subsequent rise of the Tyrell Corp’s replacement: the eccentric megalomaniac Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), who has been described by Leto as a “Elon Musk if he wasn’t such an underachiever” in a statement about Musk I can’t decide is an insult or irony. At first, I was put off by Leto’s strange performance, but I later accepted it.
The world of this sequel maintains the style of the first movie while updating it with more advanced technology and user interface. Deakins works with production designer Dennis Gassner to make well-lit, trendy minimalist interiors that still do justice to the cyberpunk aesthetic while giving us the dark look of futuristic Los Angeles. The scenery refreshingly consists of mostly practical effects, and the sound design also enhances the atmosphere. There are plenty of interesting ideas abound with the setting and at least one deceptively realistic one. I was ready to praise the movie for its depiction of a field of white warehouses’ imitating the pattern of farmlands in a cyberpunk perversion of agriculture, but it turns out it’s a real place.
The movie’s plot begins when K tracks down a renegade Nexus-8 replicant named Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista) and finds a suspicious box buried on the property. The contents of the box are supposedly game-changing; the remains of a female replicant (Rachel from the first movie) who had somehow given birth. K’s superior Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright) recognizes this as a risk to the current order and orders him to track down the loose ends (a possible missing child) to make sure that this does not inspire rebellion among the renegade replicants. On the other hand, Wallace, whose company identified the specimen’s DNA, desires the ability to breed replicants as a stepping stone to a self-sustaining, but disposable, work force needed to spread his empire to the stars. He orders his replicant enforcer Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) to recover the evidence.
Luv is one of my favorite parts of this movie. She’s a great villain bolstered by Hoek’s performance. At first, I thought that her occasional tear-shedding was an awkward attempt to add some unearned depth to a sardonic killing machine, but I later learned that that was a result of survival instinct; she’s afraid of her master, who shows no remorse toward killing his replicants for literally no reason. It’s a possible intentional move to keep her on her toes.
As K searches for answers, he finds a number that reminds him of a traumatic core memory, one he’s always assumed was an implant. He finds evidence the memory was real and consults Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri), an immunocompromised scientist known for her quality memory implants.* (It does not occur to him to have his other memories checked.) When she informs him that this memory is one of her items taken from an actual person’s memory, K’s suspicions are cofirmed: he is not truly a replicant. This upsets him.
Throughout the movie, K’s private life is spent with a holographic AI girlfriend named Joi (Ana de Armas). While there might be some ambiguity as to whether or not Joi is conscious, I would definitely prefer the negative answer as she is a very flat character, and also because K is a more effectively tragic hero if his one relationship is fake. This is actually supported by the story; Joi is after all, designed to satisfy her owner, and most everything she does is at his convenience or to reinforce his personal thoughts. When K “gifts” her with a portable projecter, she makes a predictable request to go out into the rain. When K asks her if she is okay with severing her backup data to cover his tracks informing her that she would “die” if the portable is destroyed, she inanely replies, “just like a real girl.” Contrast this with R2’s attempt to take control of Luke’s X-Wing so they wouldn’t have to go to Dagobah. After her “death,” K looks upon a holographic ad for Joi and seems to realize his folly when the ad addresses him as “Joe,” a name that his Joi suggested when he found out about his apparent humanity (also an oversight in Wallace’s design), while emphasizing the purpose of the AI to say whatever one wants. Of course, if K did not have this epiphany and he was simply looking at the advertisement as a way to pump himself up for revenge without a clue, it would be more tragic. In sharp contrast, it’s a bit heartwarming when Deckard shouts the name at him during a suspenseful moment.
K eventually follows the clues to find Deckard (Harrison Ford) hiding in a wasted Las Vegas. Deckard is captured when they are found out by Luv and Co., and K is rescued by a cell of replicants led by Freysa (Hiam Abass), who informs him that he was not the child in question. It is eventually revealed that the baby is actually Dr. Stelline. The replicants’ goal seems pointless, but that may be the point. While conceptually significant, the political significance of one replicant’s (a unique prototype) being able to (fatally) give birth to one child (with a major immune defect) is dubious; replicants are still effectively less fertile than mules. What may be the most important thing is that K, amidst all these futile conflicts, risked his life in the end to unite a father with his child.
Blade Runner 2049 is one of the most enjoyable movies in recent years. Its plot is engaging enough to render a 2:40 runtime pleasant, and it’s a feast for the senses with good characters. The supporting cast features strong, sometimes brief performances, from Mackenzie Davis, Barkhad Abdi, David Dastmalchian, Tomas Lemarquis, and Lennie James. Sean Young assisted by lending her likeness while coaching body double Loren Peta, on whom a very convincing CGI face was composited.
As much as I want to credit this movie for its masterful execution, I really dislike the way in which it sullied the wonderfully mysterious and ambiguous ending of the first movie.** I like how Rick and Rachel’s fate was left a mystery. The only call-back we really needed was the sequel’s scene in which Gaff (Edward James Olmos) reflects on the mystery. I can’t think of a single way in which this plot would not have worked if they had simply made it about two different characters. Also, for some reason that might have something to do with my distaste for this aspect of the plot, Harrison Ford just doesn’t seem like Deckard in this movie. It’s the one thing that truly brings this movie down. Hell, I unironically prefer Soldier as a part of Blade Runner canon, despite its lack of comparable cinematic craft.
Another way in which Blade Runner 2049 fails to do justice is that it lacks the depth of the first movie. The themes aren’t nearly as insightful, and it lacks subtlety (no wonder RedLetterMedia preferred it!); practically everything is outlined for the viewer, and it even indulges in twist reveal montages. Overall, it’s a very well-made and enjoyable film, but it’s mostly above-average fanservice.
* Stelline says most people think a quality memory is about detail, rather than emotions felt. I find that to be a strange assumption considering how unreliable memories are known to be. Whenever I check on a scene from a movie that frightened me as a young child, I noticed that the scene literally looks different, as if my mind has been modifying the memory to something I would be similarly frightened of today.
** I refer, of course, to the Director/Final Cut.
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