“Not the worst film in the world, but a little short of being great”
There was a lot of excitement when Blade Runner 2049 was announced. Having never seen the original by that point I was somewhat excited, given how much I’d heard about the original being amazing. Even after seeing the original and being disappointed, and then seeing the Final Cut and not exactly being too much more overwhelmed, I wanted to give Blade Runner 2049 a chance to stand on its own. I hoped it wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of its predecessor. I hoped it would take what was a very cool concept and expand on it, give us characters I would enjoy more and root for more, and take the whole Blade Runner universe in a new direction. I was up for that as well, after all this is a different time and maybe a different movie was called for.
What I’ll therefore say about the film is that it didn’t disappoint me. I didn’t go in with the highest of expectations and it lived up to what I expected of it. I enjoyed this film a lot more than the original, however there are a few problems which prevent this from being a great film. That said, if the only thing you want from your movie is a decent plot in a decent world then this movie ticks both of those boxes. The plot was very good – far exceeding the original in every way as far as I was concerned – and it kept me entertained until the very end. There are plenty of throwbacks to the originl as well, so if you’re going to watch the film I’d recommend “refreshing” yourself on the original beforehand, as both my friend and I said after it we were glad that we watched the original the night before and instantly therefore were up to date on the throwback moments to the original. Not that I think you NEED to have them fresh in your mind to enjoy them, but you’ll probably connect more with them if you see the original beforehand. That said, let’s get more specific.
The Setup
Much like the original we begin with a screen of text to introduce us to the updated world, where we find out that replicants are no longer outlawed and are in fact now common place. New models, created to obey their human masters, have been integrated into society as they are needed to maintain humanities continued existence. There are still rogue model older models however, engineered not to have died out after the short lifespan from the original movie, and thus there’s still a need for Blade Runners to hunt them down and “retire” them. And it’s on that note that we meet our hero for the movie, K (Ryan Gosling). K is a replicant who hunts down other older model replicants. We’re introduced to him as he’s tracked one such replicant down, Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista). Before being killed, Morton talks about having witnessed a “miracle” that nobody like K will understand. After killing him, K finds a dead old tree nearby with something buried beneath it. He reports this in, and his supervisor orders an excavation while K returns to base.
Back at base we find out how the new replicants are controlled. They go through a series of “baseline” tests, to check that they’re still functioning normally and within their certain parameters. Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright) reveals to K that the box buried under the tree contained human remains, but during the forensic investigation they release not only that the woman who’s remains are in the box died during childbirth, but incredibly that she was a replicant. Joshi then orders K to cover the whole thing up, to investigate the birth and find out everything he can so that they can stop this news from getting out, after all if the news gets out then the balance between human beings and replicants will be shattered. If humans know replicants can reproduce it will change everything. K therefore begins his investigations by heading to the headquarters of Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), who’s bought out the Tyrell Corporation from the first film. It’s here that K identifies the body as that of Rachael from the first film, and Wallace assigns a replicant of his own, Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), to find the child and get back the remains, as he needs these in order to figure out how Tyrell made replicants who can reproduce, as it’s not possible for him to create enough replicants in the traditional way to keep up with the demand.
This then sets K on a mission to figure out how it was that Rachael was able to have a child, and indeed who the father was. Along the way, however, he – with the help of his girlfriend, who’s a computerised holographic projection named Joi (Ana de Armas) – has to battle with Wallace’s own schemes, and does all he can to uncover the truth and track down the person who may know more than anyone, a former Blade Runner, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). But, more than that, K also discovers that he has a memory that may mean that he might not actually just be a standard replicant, but he might be something more…
The Delivery
Straight away I’ll say the best thing about this film is the story. The plot of the film is really good, it’s well delivered, and it keeps you guessing as to what’s really going on the entire time. Obviously you know that K is looking for the child, and looking to figure out what really happened to Rachael all those years ago after she ran off with Deckard, but the fact that we’re given the tease that K himself may be the child, integrated into society so well that even he doesn’t remember it and hidden under the nose of all those who would be looking for him, literally hidden in plain sight, is fantastic. The story he goes through, and trying to figure out if it’s true or not and if he could actually have been “born” rather than “made”, is what makes this film good. I really can’t fault the story, and having ruined it enough I won’t ruin it anymore, but it has some twists and some turns and when you think you know what’s going to happen the movie has a way of just keeping you guessing so that it’s far from formulaic. If I was only going on the quality of the story I’d recommend this as a very good film, but unfortunately the film has a bunch of problems that drags down its overall quality.
The first, and by far biggest, problem is the length of the film. The film is 163 minutes from beginning to end, and it REALLY feels like it. It doesn’t zoom by and give you so much to take in that you lose track of time. I was acutely aware of how much time was passing and looked at my watch several times wondering how much longer we had. What’s worse is that the film, at over two and a half hours, could probably have fit into a 90 minute or two-hour film with absolute ease, and with a shortened runtime likely would have been a far, far more enjoyable film. Instead it goes on and on and on, it gives us way too much of some scenes that you really feel could be cut out to save time, and worse than all of that it makes the same mistake from the first film of just lingering on certain scenes for far, far too long. This isn’t just like the first film does by lingering on the scenery and the surroundings for so long, but it also drags out certain scenes a lot longer than they need to run. Making these scenes snappier, cutting them down to the essentials and getting the plot moving along far quicker, would undoubtedly have improved the pace of the film and made it far more enjoyable. There just isn’t enough story, and nowhere near enough subplot, to keep the movie going as long as it does, which is unfortunate.
Another plus now and I can’t really fault the acting of anyone involved. If I added to the previous review I did of the original (which was long enough without this criticism on top) I’d question the choice of a few of the actors to portray the roles that they portrayed. This time around and I had no problem with any of the actors. One of my favourites was Ana de Armas as Joi, the wife of K and a hologram who gets an upgrade so that she no longer has to rely on the projectors in their apartment to have a physical presence but rather gets to go out in the world via a portable holographic projector. Ana de Armas is quite wonderful in her role, and a character that I did find myself caring for, which is rare in this franchise as I can’t say that I’ve particularly cared for any of the other characters (but we’ll get to that in a moment). Ryan Gosling’s performance also deserves a mention, as he was in good form as K, and the scenes with him and Ana de Armas were some of the best and most interesting of the film, especially since we’re talking about one artificially created being having a loving relationship with another type of artificially created being. That element of the film, in fact, may be my favourite thing about the whole thing.
That, while praise for those two, is actually my way of condemning other parts of the film. That condemnation comes in the form of more characters that I never really felt that much of a connection with. While I will say that Ryan Gosling was great in his role, and there were no bad performances, none of the characters themselves really jumped out at me and I didn’t feel strongly for any of their arcs. The character of Lieutenant Joshi, played very well by Robin Wright, could have been so much more than she was but her limited involvement in the film made for a very stunted character who you couldn’t really connect with throughout her arc. The character of Luv, played well by Sylvia Hoeks, was a decent villain character but again could have been expanded far more than she was. Instead she was just the relentless seeker, not really with much more explored. And one of the things that irks me most about the film is the character of Niander Wallace, played by Jared Leto, who’s introduced well, seems very interesting, but just doesn’t really do much throughout the film. He’s a very good replacement or Tyrell from the first film, and it’s well explained that he has his motivations, but these aren’t really explored and when it comes to him being the real “bad guy” of the film he just doesn’t do much to warrant this, nor does he get any comeuppance for his “plan” either. He teases Rick Deckard after capturing him, gets his minions to move Deckard and then vanishes from the film again, not to be seen again and leaving Luv to play the bad guy in the final few scenes, leaving me to wonder what the point in the character even was.
It felt too much like they were baiting us for a sequel with the setup they did that didn’t actually deliver on anything. It felt like this was some kind of nod to a potential expanded universe, and in the sequel it will all make sense due to the fact we’ll look back on this as the introduction of the character who was “behind it all”, or whatever the finale would be with him, but in this film standing alone it just felt like a complete waste, so much so that when we were talking about the film afterwards we both laughed and asked what the point in him actually being in the film was. If he was in it a little less than you could argue that his purpose was fine. If he was in it a little more, or we got some kind of scene with him reacting to what else happened – or a final scene of the film where he actually got some kind of comeuppance – then fair enough, I’d be fine with it. Instead him just vanishing from the narrative feels way too much to me like they’re baiting for a sequel. The same is also true of another scene where K is woken up by a group, and the introduction of this group also seems a little too much like baiting for a sequel or beginning a plot point that wasn’t really all that necessary. It was nice, and it served an important part of the character arc that K went through (which I’ll try not to spoil too much more than I have), but ultimately I feel like it was unnecessary when he could have been motivated by other reasons.
All that said, the film is visually stunning, and the scene in Las Vegas is particularly visually amazing to see the “ruins” of a once great city. The story could move a lot faster here however, and the interaction between Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard and Ryan Gosling’s K could have been expanded on more – or they could have done more with the fact that Joi was also there but barely did anything up until the end of the Vegas bit – but they seemed more interested in reminding us of the first film than really doing anything all that new. And it’s the reminding us of the first film that I’m going to end this on, because they treat the first film like it’s this incredible love story between Deckard and Rachael and I’m sorry but it’s just NOT a love story. It’s not. It was one of the weirdest, most uncomfortable “love stories” I’ve ever seen in my life, there was absolutely nothing romantic about it, so to have it almost revered in this film and to have Deckard claiming love and that he had to leave to protect them and blah, blah, blah, just felt like he was referring to another film entirely and another love story than the one I watched only the night before. What’s more, there’s also the question from the first film that’s left unanswered – that being the question of whether or not Deckard is human. Deckard and Rachael have a child in this film, but it’s never adequately explained whether this is possible because Deckard was another replicant, or whether it was possible because he’s a human. They seemed to be willing to give both camps enough to guess upon, and enough to support their argument either way, rather than actually answering the question once and for all, so I left the cinema still wondering about something that seems to have been made a big deal over the years and was barely even a part of the original film. Why the mystery, guys? Just give an answer!
The Verdict
If you want to know more about the way I rate films, check out my post explaining exactly that. That can be found by clicking here: The Verdict: Ranking Systems
So, now you know how I rank, let’s rank this film, shall we? The story is good, the acting is good, the characters are a bit lacking and the film is SO very slow… but overall I can’t say it’s a bad film or a great film. A shorter cut could possibly be a great film. A film with a faster pace, that gets through the major points of the movie and cuts out a lot of what honestly felt like delayed scenes and filler, could be a great movie. But the cut that’s currently in cinemas is, unfortunately, not. The best I can say about this film is that it’s good. It’s definitely worth watching at some stage as the plot itself is really good – far, far, far better than the plot of the original – and there are some action sequences in it that were highly entertaining, plus the general look and feel of the movie (especially Las Vegas) was very good. But it’s the dragging pace that kills it for me. For that reason I can’t justify telling you to see it in the cinema. I don’t think it’s worth the full price of a ticket. I also don’t think this is the kind of film that’s worth rewatching again and again on Blu-Ray or DVD. It’s probably more likely a film you’ll see once and be done with, thus I’d recommend renting it when that becomes an option.
Rating:
Good
Watch It On Rental
Ultimately, I saw this film with my Limitless card, and I paid for my friend to watch it but got a discounted ticket. I, therefore, didn’t feel ripped off by paying just a grand total of £6 for the two of us to see it. If you’re going into it shelling out closer to £25 for two of you then I’ll say outright that I think you’re wasting your money and you’d be better off waiting until it’s out to rent and then paying £4 and watching it in the comfort of your own home. Yes, it’s possible you’ll miss out on the big screen experience and you’ll miss out on seeing how stunning the movie actually looks, but that alone is no reason to pay big money to watch it I’m afraid. I know they hoped for big things for the movie from the return at the cinema, and while critics are apparently praising the film I’m just unable to do so, and I hope that it doesn’t smash any records because those records are likely held by far better movies. But, of course, you’re free to disagree with me if you want to. What do I know, right? I didn’t even like the original!
So, if you want to disagree with me, you likely know how. If you can tell me reasons why I’m wrong in my comments then I’m happy to hear them. Nobody has made me change a review yet, but there could well be a first time. If you want to give it a try, please do on Facebook (facebook.com/ajebdon) or Twitter (@AJEbdon). And that ends my review of Blade Runner 2049, not a bad movie but far from an all-time classic.