If sequels, prequels and the like must exist, the least Hollywood can do is to wait a decent amount of time so it makes the successor fresher than churning it out a mere few years later. We've seen it done before: "The Pink Panther", "Murder on the Orient Express", The "Star Wars" series, and now we have "Blade Runner 2049" sunsequent to "Blade Runner".
This sequel to Ridley Scott's landmark 1982 sci-fi film picks up the story 30 years later, giving its audience another detailed look at the future in which humanity live in polluted, overcrowded cities and rely on androids known as 'replicants' for slave labor created by sinister, Niander Wallace (Jared Leto). In 2049 Los Angeles, K (Ryan Gosling) works as a 'blade runner', a specialized law-enforcement agent dedicated to tracking down and killing rogue replicants. But when he uncovers a shocking conspiracy involving the robot laborers, he searches for the one person who might have answers: a former blade runner named Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) who vanished decades earlier.
Others to round out the cast are Ana De Armas as Joi, Robin Wright as Lt. Joshi, K's boss, Sylvia Hoeks as Luv, Carla Juri as Dr. Ana Stelline, Lennie James as Mister Cotton, Dave Bautista as Sapper Morgan, a rogue replicant, Mackenzie Davis as Mariette, Mark Arnold as Interviewer and Wood Harris as Nandez.
By his very resume, this film was intensely and boldly directed by Denis Villeneuve ("August 32nd on Earth" '98, "Maelstrom" 2000, "Happiness Bound" (Documentary) .07, "Polytechnique" '09, "Incendies" '10, "Prisoners" '13, "Enemy" '13, "Sicario" '15, "Arrival" '16) plus shorts. His ability to get his actors to extract a certain emotion is amazing. This was evident in the film "Prisoners" where the subtlety from the different characters gave it that realistic approach as this does also. It was incredibly well written by Hampton Fancher ("Blade Runner" '82, "The Mighty Quinn" '89, "The Minus Man" '99) plus shorts and Michael Green ("Green Lantern" '11, "Gotham " (TV Movie) '12, "Logan" '17), based on a story by Fancher which is based on characters from the novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick. Ridley Scott, who exec produced this and who directed the 1982 film was brilliant in obtaining Fancher to reprise the sequel since he wrote the original. It gave this film that similarity that was so needed since there is a 35 year spread between the two films. Along with the talent of Green, a magical script was formulated. If you like Green's writing, his next film, "Murder on the Orient Express" is released on November 10th. Really, the only problem with this was that it was a little long-in-the-tooth, but certainly not enough to detract from this intriguing story. Also considering this originally was derived from the mastermind of novelist Philip K. Dick ("Total Recall" from short story, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" '90, "Impostor" '01, "Minority Report" '02, "Paycheck" '03, "A Scanner Darkly" '06, "Next" from novel story, "The Golden Man" '07, "The Adjustment Bureau" from short story, "Adjustment Team" '11), how could any go wrong. This novelist gives us that 'what if?' scenario which causes us all to stop and reflect. Through his work he is basically saying not to trust 'big brother', and I can surely respect that. The chemistry between Ford and Gosling was intense and truly worked. It was great to see Ford reprising his role as Deckard for sure.
Anyone that has seen "Blade Runner" will love this continuation, but even if you haven't seen the original, there is enough preface in print at the beginning to bring one up to snuff so you don't feel like you're coming into this film in the dark. It's visually stunning which means you must see this on the large screen to get that full impact. Hey, it's formatted in IMAX and 4DX to give it even more of a grandiose feeling.
Out of 4 Stars: 4 Rated: R 164mins.
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