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Albert Camus

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Review Blade Runner 2049

Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Screenplay by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green.
Story by Hampton Fancher
Based on characters from the novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick 


REVIEW

First of all, to be no mistake, I’ll tell you that I did not like the new Blade Runner.

I don’t think I ever been so tired, or maybe better said bored, after watching a movie. You know that I don’t like to write negative reviews, but here is not about a book on a promotion tour, thus you can allow me to share some of my thoughts.

First, let’s talk a bit about Ridley Scott (who here is one of the producers). I really believe that he should better start looking for new materials and leave alone his old movies and stop botched them… He did that to Alien (which in my opinion is one of the best SF movies) with last two films in the series: Prometheus and Alien Covenant. I see now that he started working on Blade Runner. Who knows… maybe the next will be The Duellists and Gladiator… I get it that he has a thing with the myth of creation, the conflict between the Creator and His creation, the Adamic myth or Prometheic one or however you want to call it. But enough!

1982 Blade Runner was superb from this point of view (read our Book and Film). It said everything the director wanted to say, it let open doors for the spectators to think themselves about the problematic of the subject and thoroughly elutriate the theme of Philip K. Dick's book, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

Returning to the new Blade Runner 2049, I could say that it resembles with a bad and unsolicited update of an application that was doing well and by mistake or who knows why you pressed the update button. You almost certainly found yourself in the situation in which you made an update and suddenly the app goes even worse than before, the interface is changed and everything is muddled. That is, a change was made only for the sake of change. In other words, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, the 1982 Blade Runner is a visual noir poem, and the new movie is like a cheap novel. In conclusion: a pretentious crap!

Visually, obviously, with all the money they put in and the CGI technology of today, it was impossible to look bad, although the 1982 one it seems, at least to me, more interesting in this chapter too.

The actors... I don’t know how the director asked them to play, but they all look and act like Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of the Terminator series, although the idea was to act as human as possible (and in the first movie the acting was perfect from this point of view). Let's give a few examples: Ryan Gosling - either he or any other debut actor would have been the same thing; Jared Leto – didn’t found himself; Sylvia Hoeks as Luv – her acting was as if she was the terminator woman in T3; and Harrison Ford remained stuck in the last Star Wars movie in a galaxy, far, far away, to light years from the role he did in 1982. Go figured(!) the only interesting character was created by the wrestler Dave Bautista who, in his only scene, conveyed more emotion than all other professional actors.

The scenario is poor and clogged with dingy and banal dialogues and insipid jokes. 

Music, don’t forget about the music! In the first film, this component was an extraordinary one. Obviously, it was Vangelis! In the new movie, I saw on IMDb that a bunch of people was involved in the making of the soundtrack, but they did nothing spectacular and they were far cry from the perfection of the old one that gave gravity, depth to the film and ideas, personalized the characters. There were themes and the music conveyed emotions and helped the viewer to dream with open eyes. Perfect!

My conclusion? If you do not have something good to say, better keep your mouth shut. I don’t recommend the movie, but if you still want to make your own opinion, my advice is to go when you feel full of patience. That means to be aware that you will lose 2h,40’ of your time in a chair.

So... patience, my friends!

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