Joi (Ana de Armas) is fully emotionally connected to him, even though she’s another product of Wallace’s omnipresent corporation. K has a quiet, constrained life, complete with a hologram wife to keep him from wanting more than the routine of ceaseless murder. She possesses an arresting combination of contempt and empathy for the humans who created people like her. But Niander’s right-hand replicant, Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), is ordered to follow the follower. Joshi (Robin Wright), whom he addresses as “madam,” wants K to cover the whole thing up. But Niander Wallace, a power-mad blind oracle played by Jared Leto, has crated new replicants more pliable and palatable, which makes his otherworldly ambitions possible. The old Tyrell corporation that created the first replicants, aka “skin jobs,” is long defunct. While on a routine “retirement” of an old-model replicant (Dave Bautista), K makes a discovery that sets off a world of strife. Though he is (almost literally) spat upon by other police officers. Known by his serial number, KD6-3.7, or simply “K,” he moves freely among normal humans with a gun, an LAPD badge and all the powers that come with those tokens. In this version, there is no question about the nature of Gosling’s blade runner: he is a replicant who hunts his own kind. (Though ever more loosely, it must be said.) Things are helped immensely by the return of original script man Hampton Fancher, joined by Michael Green, working from the novel by Philip K. Yet Denis Villeneuve (“Prisoners”) has perfectly captured the qualities that made the 1982 film so vivid and groundbreaking - the sense of alienation, the way life is devalued simply because of its origin, the invasion of commerce into every corner of our lives. My suspicion arose chiefly because the sequel, which is set 30 years later than the original and arrives 35 years after, is not directed by Ridley Scott, who’s still around and quite busy at nearly age 80. It’s a titanic clash of generations, quite literally. “I had your job once… I was good at it,” Deckard taunts upon their first meeting. The film manages to introduce us to a new hunter of replicants, played by Ryan Gosling, while reuniting us with Deckard, as Harrison Ford reprises one of his most indelible roles. Having watched it, I can’t imagine it beginning, or ending, another way. This is the rare sequel that is an extension which is both logically and emotionally sound. It continues the journey of a dystopian, not-so-distant future of bioengineered humans made to be servants of genuine ones, and how each struggles at the shackles that bind them together. It’s brilliant, disturbing, sad, beautiful, tragic and filled with tempered joy. So: “Blade Runner 2049” is the finest film I’ve seen in 2017. And yet I love those movies now, offshoots of things I cherished as a youngster - edging to the point of favoring the new over the old, if my middle-aged self was unflinchingly honest with my teen me. Just as I did not want to see a live-action version of “The Lord of the Rings,” or a reboot of the “Mad Max” franchises. “Blade Runner 2049” is set to hit theaters Oct.The truth: I didn’t really want a “Blade Runner” sequel. In addition to Gosling and Ford, the “Blade Runner” sequel will also feature Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, with Dave Bautista and Jared Leto. ![]() ![]() ![]() Special operatives known as blade runners are designated to track and eliminate replicants that have made their way to Earth. It depicts a future Los Angeles where replicants - bioengineered androids nearly indistinguishable from humans and tasked with menial labor on off-world colonies - are illegal on Earth. The original “Blade Runner,” of course, was based on the science fiction novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. 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.” Here is the full official 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.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |