BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017) movie

Genre               |   Science Fiction

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |   164 minutes

Released         |   5 October 2017

cast

​Ryan Gosling ... K
Harrison Ford ... Deckard
Jared Leto ... Niander Wallace
Robin Wright ... Lt Joshi
Ana de Armas ... Joi​
Dave Bautista ... Sapper Morton

director

Denis Villeneuve

writer

Hampton Fancher and
Michael Green

cinematographer

Roger Deakins

music

Hans Zimmer
Benjamin Wallfisch

film editor

​​Joe Walker

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box office result

Worldwide           $259,239,658

Australia               $​10,223,784

North America     $​92,054,159

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movie minutiae

​For shooting of the scene in Las Vegas, Nevada, cinematographer Roger Deakins was inspired by a memory of seeing the Sydney Opera House in Australia after a dust storm. Director Denis Villeneuve suggested adding the giant erotic statue.

​As seen in this movie, the baseline test that "K" must recite back ("A system of cells interlinked within / Cells interlinked within cells interlinked") was Ryan Gosling's idea. He employed an acting technique called "dropping in", which induced a trance-like and hypnotic effect on his performance.

When Joi searches around Rick Deckard's place, there is ambient noise which was heard in Deckard's apartment in BLADE RUNNER (1982) and was also used as background noise in the medical bay in ALIEN (1979).

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BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017) IMAGES

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BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017) STORY SYNOPSIS

Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 4 Ocotber 2017
​Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐​

The greatest fear BLADE RUNNER fans have had is that a sequel, not matter who wrote it, starred in it or directed it, would never be able to compare with Ridley Scott’s 1982 film. Largely ignored at the time, BLADE RUNNER developed a cult-like following among filmmakers and, over the years, has been cited as the inspiration for many an individual wanting to get into the business of making movies. The film’s appreciation grew throughout the 1980s and, by the early 1990s, Ridley Scott revisited the project, releasing a Director’s Cut that brought BLADE RUNNER a greater admiration from among the general public and the broad consensus that the film had transcended the initial critical indifference and commercial failure of the original release. The case for BLADE RUNNER was strengthened even further in 2007 when Warner Bros granted Ridley Scott full creative and editorial control over “The Final Cut” version of the movie, which was re-released theatrically prior to its home entertainment launch. Ten years after “The Final Cut” and thirty-five years after the original, BLADE RUNNER 2049 is in cinemas.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 is not just a superb follow-up story to the the 1982 movie; it’s a genuine attempt to tell a Science Fiction tale that could have been told by Phillip K. Dick; the talented, but psychologically tormented, author who wrote “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”; the novel the original movie was based upon.

The new film, written by Hampton Fancher, one of the 1982 writers, and Michael Green, the  current “Go To” Hollywood scripter, takes its time to genuinely explore the concept of the “Soul” in all its different forms. From the Humans, to Replicants and even Virtual characters, BLADE RUNNER 2049 seeks to qualify the next step of evolution and what impact that may have upon the society of the time.

​Where the 1982 film concentrated principally upon the plight of Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty and his small band of Nexus 6 Replicants, BLADE RUNNER 2049 paints on a much larger canvas. The story is built around Ryan Gosling’s K, a Blade Runner with the LAPD. In tracking down a rogue Replicant in the film's extended opening sequence, K uncovers a mystery that has been thirty years in the making.

Director Denis Villeneuve, who is on a white-hot streak with SICARIO (2015), ARRIVAL (2016) and now BLADE RUNNER 2049, has clearly been given a mandate to make a movie that will do justice to the heritage of the story. At 164 minutes, BLADE RUNNER 2049 is a long movie, but it’s well and truly worth it. To put this into perspective, this new movie is two minutes longer than Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 Science Fiction masterpiece, STALKER, and is fifteen minutes longer than 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. That’s not to suggest that a great Science Fiction movie needs to be nearly three hours long, but BLADE RUNNER 2049 is not out of place in the company of these other movies.

The ability to tell the story at its own pace is critical to the success of Science Fiction stories that look to provide more than just surface-level entertainment, so the running time becomes an issue; especially given the turnaround demands to get as many as five movies on a cinema screen in one day. It’s a brave decision by Warner Bros and Sony to join together on the North American and International distribution of this film because its running time has built-in commercial limitations.

The upside of the extended running time rpovides Villeneuve and Film Editor Joe Walker plenty of scope to develop a greater number of characters than might be expected from a 115 minute straight forward action story.

Ryan Gosling is excellent as K and is backed-up by an even more eclectic array of personalities than the original movie.

Jared Leto makes a significantly greater impact here, as Bio-Industrialist Niander Wallace, than he did in last year’s SUICIDE SQUAD Joker turn. Leto is creepy, prophetic and, ultimately, evil, as he works to find a way to increase production of his Nexus 8 Replicants.

Robin Wright is no M. Emmett Walsh, but she certainly leaves her mark as the LAPD Lieutenant who gets caught up in a conspiracy that has not just life and death implications for those involved, but could also see Replicants rise up against Humans in an effort to control their destiny.

Harrison Ford plays a central role in the second part of the story and delivers a level of nuance he hasn’t been required to deliver in a role for a long, long time. Perhaps the best character is its least human.

The gorgeous Ana de Armas plays Joi, a hologram, whom K interacts with to escape from the challenges of the real world. Joi is a reminder to the audience that there’s always somebody else whose plight is more desperate than theirs and her desire to please K is touching and demonstrates that emotion is not necessarily the exclusive purview of humans.

It would be remiss not to acknowledge the behind-the-scenes talent involved in BLADE RUNNER 2049, as it is an astounding achievement of both sight and sound.

Roger Deakins does what he does best and helps Villeneuve to create a visual feast, employing lighting designs and camera positions that prove he is among the very best Cinematographers in the history of movies. If he fails to be recognized for his work on this movie, it will be an absolute travesty.

Production Designer Dennis Gassner has pulled out all the stops with both the Art and Production Departments to deliver sets, costumes and props that pay homage to the 1982 film but also provide the audience with an evolved design aesthetic reflecting the thirty year gap between the setting of the the new movie to the original story.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 is more like a dilapidated version of 1950s and early 1960s design and architecture, where the original is more like the Art Deco of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Aurally, the sound design is awesome and the score, courtesy of Benjamin Wallfisch and Hans Zimmer, finds a way to extend the Vangelis musical motifs without being derivative. Sadly, Johan Johansson’s takes on the music will never be heard, but the Wallfisch-Zimmer score provides a great accompaniment to the images on the screen.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 is a 5 Star evolution of its progenitor; here’s hoping no one has to wait another thirty-five years before audiences get to see what the next evolution looks like.

BLADE RUNNER SHORT FILMS

BLADE RUNNER 2049 MOVIE (2017) USEFUL LINKS

Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - IMDb
​Blade Runner 2049 - Wikipedia​
​Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - Rotten Tomatoes

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