BladeRunner 2049 Quick Review (7/10)

Author:  MikeW Date: 2017-10-09T03:02:05+00:00

Review

Blade Runner 2049 is the sequel to the 1982 file Blade Runner. The main character is a policeman named K (Ryan Gosling) whose job it is to hunt down and kill rogue androids. This is troubling since K himself is an android and knows it. Talk about a sucky job.

The movies' plot center's around two things. First, K's last case results in the discovery of a few mysteries. The deeper he digs into the case, the more dangerous life becomes for him. Second, the relationship between K and and his girlfiend Joi (Ana de Armas) grows as the story unfolds. This is probably the best part of the movie.

The movie is definitely worth seeing and I'm giving it a 7/10. The score is not higher because of some of the issues I have with the movie. Some of which has to do with the original movie that I am a big fan of. My reasoning shall follow in the spoiler section.

Also, Warner Bros made three shorts to help explain what happened between the two movies.

Spoilers follow stop here if you have not seen the movie!!!!


Spoilers: Dislikes

The Soundtrack

The original soundtrack by Vangelis is one of the greatest movie soundtracks of all time. The electronic sounds adds a sense of wonderment and beauty to what is a somewhat bleak setting. Clearly a tough act to follow.

The new soundtrack is sort of a bad homage to the original with really loud fog horns thrown in. The music is loud and distracting, the opposite of what a good soundtrack should be.

The Villan

Wallace (Jared Leto) is the new genius who took over the Tyrell corporation. In the first movie, Eldon Tyrell felt like a brilliant genius business man, charismatic but a little odd. However, Wallace sounds like a teenage stoner reading fortune cookie messages. Everything, Wallace says is supposed to sound "smart", but just sounds lame and two dimensional to me. I really wish the character had been written better so Jared Leto has more to work with.

Dystopian Discontinuity

In the original film, the world was dystopian because so many people had left earth. J. F. Sebastian had the entire floor of an apartment building to himself. Things were falling apart because it felt like no one was left to fix them.

The new movie makes it seem like overcrowding is the issue. That hardly makes any sense given the short time span between the movies (30 yrs). Very annoying.

Everyone a racist?

Every human in the movie is a racist anti-replicant. Except for Deckard, who may or may not be human. Really? Everyone? Just seems over the top to me. If things were really that bad, humans would still be killing every replicant they could get their hands on.

Outside the City?

Any time a dystopian movie leaves a city, it seems clear to me that none of the movies creators have ever left the city, or lived outside a city. The orphanage, the memory lab, just seemed really silly. There is like 1 dude raising like 5000 orphans???? Really???? He would spend all his time shaving their heads. lol.

Comments

K and Joi

The K and Joi relationship was one of the best things about the movie. Well written and acted. The two characters really cared for each other. Towards the end of the movie when K encounters a giant ad for Joi, that was so heartbreaking. You could really feel his loss.

Robot Revolution

I could not quite figure out the whole replicant uprising underground thing. The implication seemed to be that the replicants were breeding? And were increasing their numbers for the eventual revolution? Or maybe they figured out how to manufacture new replicants themselves??? Didn't quite understand that.

Good Ending

It was nice to explain and tie up the whole Rachael and Deckard thing. Well done. Also, K could still be alive even though they played the Tears in the Rain theme when he lied down on the steps.

Overall

Really good movie with a really great core story. My quibbles are really minor on the whole. If you haven't seen the original go see it, you will be glad you did.