There is a wonderful concept for a sequel to one of the great visionary masterpieces of all time, the one and only 1982 sci-fi classic "Blade Runner." The idea of a replicant "blade runner" (are you happy now, Mr. Ridley Scott?) seeking the clues to a bag of human bones purported to be that of a replicant that gave birth to a child is something to ruminate on. It begs for further introspection and aims for a different set of rules and creative ideas established by the original film (and the Philip K. Dick novel). "Blade Runner 2049" unfortunately has the concept but not the delivery or execution. This colossal bore of a movie is overlong and extremely unappealing to the eyes and ears and bears little imagination. A shame because buried in this sequel is something possibly brilliant that never comes to the surface.
Ryan Gosling is Joe or more appropriately K, the stone-faced replicant blade runner, essentially no different from Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard from the original film except he really is a replicant (no footage of unicorns this time). K retires ("kills") a replicant in the astounding opening sequence where he finds a farming station and the sole tree in the barren environment held by ropes. K also finds a box buried next to the tree containing the skull and bones of Rachael (Sean Young), a female replicant who went in hiding with Deckard. It turns out she had a caesarean birth to a part-replicant child which nobody in this future world deemed possible. K also investigates his memory implant of a tree-carved dog figure he kept near a furnace in the orphanage he thought he belonged to. When K discovers the truth, I was still there for the film wondering where this might lead, and the possibility of discovering Rachel's kid. Wait, is it K? Does he think he's the replicant child?
There are some fascinating tidbits involving K and his holographic girlfriend Joi (Ana de Armas), a hologram that we see advertised everywhere. K also flies a spinner around town and the outskirts of L.A. and eventually finds good old Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford, back and sorta, kinda there) who wants nothing to do with K or his questions. Deckard explains he and Rachael were hunted and they had to hide their child, and that is as exploratory as the film gets until we find that K is being hunted too. Getting to Deckard takes roughly 2 hours, and it is a chore to sit through this extremely slim, bare bones plot of a movie while we wait for Deckard's appearance.
The Tyrell Corporation of the original film went bankrupt and was bought by the blind Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), who is insidious in his beliefs about a whole new line of replicants he has created (He also has some pretentious ideas about human pain). One of the replicants Wallace has created is the fastidious, bodyguard replicant type named Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) who can kill someone easily just by striking at the neck area. Yet none of this resonates and Jared Leto looks like some sort of replicant cult band leader - give him a guitar and a mike and he might sing some sad bastard songs. These characters are unappealing from the start, but then so is most of the cast. Gosling seems to be sleepwalking, intentionally or not, and there is not much presence there (even when he does hand-to-hand combat, he looks like he's taking a nap). Only Ana de Armas as Joi expresses any real emotion, and she is only a hologram! (Are the filmmakers trying to deduce that holograms are more in league with their emotions than humans or even replicants?) As far as genuine emotion, I'd say I was quite moved by Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri) who is auto-immune and lives in a spacious room that has its own 3-D hologram design of memory banks (this is the most stirring moment in the entire film that feels germane to the original and builds on its foundation since she creates memories for replicants). Finally, Ford himself has a few choice moments but too few to really care overall about Deckard (though his last scene is touching).
"Blade Runner 2049" is creatively designed by several art directors including Paul Inglis and it is well-made by director Denis Villeneuve yet it mostly sits there on the screen - I was never engaged by it and, after two viewings, still found it uninvolving. There is much to savor in terms of magnificent cinematography by the hellishly good DP Roger Deakins (the desert landscape of Las Vegas with sand sculptures of women is something to see) but that is all. Unless there is a close-up of practical Spinners landing, the Spinners seen flying through the air do not rivet our attention the way they did before. The music score by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch is a thunderous assault on the soundtrack yet hardly memorable unlike Vangelis' original score. Maybe too much time has passed between these two films or maybe too many have tried to duplicate what "Blade Runner" had accomplished far too well less than 40 years earlier. I sincerely doubt that "Blade Runner 2049" will be remembered in 2049.
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