Blade Runner 2049

Please be warned: there are spoilers ahead.

As the long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 original, Blade Runner 2049 had a lot to live up to and huge potential for disaster. After all, when it comes to high-expectation sequels, there are very few Godfather II’s and The Empire Strikes Back but a lot of Blues Brothers 2000, if you know what I’m saying. Miraculously, under the confident, even visionary direction of Denis Villneuve and the remarkable cinematography of Roger Deakins, 2049 is a more than worthy successor to the original. It does what all the best sequels do – it builds on what made the original important and manages to broaden, deepen, and add layers to it. 

 Set thirty years after the original, the story follows K, a replicant or human-like robot played by Ryan Gosling, who is a Blade Runner, a cop who tracks down and kills fugitive replicants. On a routine assignment, K uncovers the bones of Rachel, the beautiful replicant from the original film played by Sean Young. Forensics reveal that Rachel died in childbirth. This, of course, is impossible because having been made and not born, Rachel wasn’t human and shouldn’t have been able to bear children. Thus begins the main arc of the film, the search for the missing mystery child, the chosen one, the potential replicant messiah. K is assigned by his boss to find and kill the child before news gets out and all the walls between human and human-like robot fall to pieces in war and rebellion.

Agents for the Wallace Corporation, the company that now produces replicants, follow K, hoping to capture the child and unlock the secrets of its conception so the corporation can exponentially increase its production of new robots. They can only make so many on their own, but if they can get replicants, you know, replicating in the Biblical sense, then the company’s profit margin would really soar.

Visually, the film is beautiful and bleak. As with the music and the production design, the cinematography touches on themes from the original while clearly showing the passage of time and evolution of the world of the film. Rather than Ridley Scott’s overstuffed, teeming compositons, Villneuve and Deakins work in vast, monolithic strokes, conveying an epic scope. In his search, K ends up in abandoned, post-dirty bomb Las Vegas which looks like a futuristic Valley of the Pharoahs. The camera glides over huge casino pyramids and walkways, shattered statues and plazas, everything orange, hazy, and irradiated. The effect is beautiful as well as frightening.

Of course, Harrison Ford returns as Rick Deckard, the Blade Runner who ran off with Rachel at the end of the first film and who may or may not be a replicant himself. Grizzled and sad, Deckard hides out in Las Vegas trying to avoid detection in hopes of protecting the identity of his miracle child with Rachel. As an actor, Ford’s range is limited – he’s grumpy and creaky, just like old Han Solo and old Indiana Jones. It’s interesting that in his 70s Ford is returning to the roles that made him one of the most bankable stars in the world as a young man – but that’s a whole other show.

The film in general is big – both visually and in its themes. To an even greater extent than the first film, 2049 dwells on the questions of what makes us human and what is it to have a soul? The film suggests that it is compassion and empathy, the ability to feel and identify with the feelings of another, that makes us human. In his compassion for both humans and replicants, K turns out to be one of the most human characters of all.

Blade Runner 2049 is long, slowly paced, violent, and packed with dense philosophical ideas. It is also one of the best movies of the year.