Blade Runner 2049 Review

With so many franchises getting revamped, rebooted, sequeled (or whatever you want to call it), it seems "Blade Runner, the fabulous 1982 financial bomb, couldn't escape Hollywood's greedy grasp. Yet, "Blade Runner 2049" is a better-than-average sequel, set long after the events of the first one- I'm guessing it was cheaper than making CGI Harrison Ford ala Jeff Bridges in "Tron: Legacy."

The plot has us follow K (Ryan Gosling), a "blade runner," or in non-movie terms, a cop who kills outdated replicants. "Replicant?" That is just a fancy term for android (fanboys will argue petty nuances differentiate the two, but I digress). Older model replicants revolted when used as slave labor, but the first movie goes over more of that in detail. Nevertheless, K finds the remains of a female replicant who died of a failed c-section, something which K's superior Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright) fears will cause replicants to demand equal rights (posing the question "does giving life make you human?"). Of course, the film asks a lot of questions, but they go unanswered to service the visuals, which yes, are magnificent, but then again, so were the visuals in the original film. So why a sequel? To be honest, it is more of the same- glorious looking sameness, but same all the same.

The plot eventually takes us to Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), though his screen time is significantly slimmer than the trailers suggest, but he is always nice to see. Charming but curt, he spends most of his time drinking from marvelous set piece to the next, sharing exposition with Gosling, who stands up fairly well to the legendary actor. Gosling is fine here as replicant K, robotic in response time but not in movement, well, not until the punches need to be thrown.

Deckard has been in hiding ever since the events of the first movie, and it is a rat race for both K and Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), a "bad" replicant working for her manufacturer Wallace (Jared Leto). Sylvia is completely fine here, but Leto unfortunately copies his poor performance as the Joker in "Suicide Squad," only without the facepaint and perhaps a bit more screen time.

While "Blade Runner 2049" is an ambitious orgy of spectacle, it is not an action film, no matter what the trailer implies. It asks questions for which it provides no answers to, and takes its time moving from one inquiry to the next. At 163 minutes, this is a long picture- sure, I can't recall a movie that dedicated itself so unbridledly to its visuals as this one, but there is about twenty minutes of fat to this otherwise entertaining parade of eye candy; sterile, nonplussing eye candy. I admire the film's technical achievements, but there is little else to recommend here.