DIRECTOR: Denis
Villeneuve CAST:
Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie
Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Dave Bautista, Jared Leto SCREENPLAY: Hampton Fancher, Michael Green STORY BY: Hampton Fancher BASED ON: Characters from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by
Philip K. Dick PRODUCERS: Hans
Zimmer, Benjamin Wallfisch GENRE: Science
Fiction, Drama, Action EDITED BY: Joe
Walker CINEMATOGRAPHY: Roger Deakins PRODUCTION COMPANY: Alcon Entertainment,
Columbia Pictures, Scott Free Productions,Torridon Films, 16:14 Entertainment, Thunderbird
Entertainment Inc. DISTRIBUTED BY: Warner
Bros. Pictures COUNTRY: United States LANGUAGE: English RUNNING TIME: 2 hours 43 minutes
Technical assessment: 3.5
Moral assessment: 2.5
CINEMA rating: V18
Thirty years after Blade Runner, we are shown the future by Blade Runner 2049, a dystopian Earth where cars can fly and humans
and androids co-exist. In this world
Officer K (Ryan Gosling), a new blade runner of post-apocalyptic Los Angeles
Police Department, is tasked with hunting down the remaining replicants—synthetic
humans who had staged a rebellion before in much the same way slaves
would. His job is to put the rebellious
replicants out of commission and retrieve their eyeballs which bear identity—their
serial numbers. On the job, Office K
gets to meet blade-runner-in-hiding Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), the hero of Bladed Runner, who
has settled in his comfortable lair where he enjoys holograms of Elvis Presley
and Frank Sinatra plus all the booze to last him three lifetimes. Officer K will soon discover a secret that
will break his heart.
Blade
Runner 2049 succeeds in portraying a gloomy future
for humanity through stunning visuals enhancing the murder-mystery plot. For one, the thick yellow fog shrouding Los
Angeles circa 2049 seems to forebode death-by-pollution for homo sapiens 30
years or so from now. Holding the
attention and interest of the viewer is the question of who in the movie is a
replicant and who is not, since one can hardly tell between a real human being
and a man-made android that looks and acts like a real person. For
example, the viewer is deceived by appearances until he sees beyond doubt that
Officer K’s companion, Joi (Ana de Armas) is but a holograph he had purchased
as he would a computer app. The “cyber
puzzle” is a cinematic device cleverly woven into a story that’s meant to eventually
lead the viewer to mull the moral or ethical consequences of such technological
advances.
Blade
Runner 2049 asks us to examine how mankind regards
technology, and how we who have a soul relate spiritually with one another. The provocative plot begins with the
discovery of the boxed remains of a female replicant who it turned out—upon examination
of her “bones”— had given birth. Here
lies the crux of the matter: if replicants (which are a collection of
artificial intelligence) can reproduce, are human emotions like love and desire
involved? If these entities can multiply
as humans do, it is not impossible that they can also decide their population
growth, even their destinies. If they
decide to reproduce while humans continue to prevent conception and abort
fetuses to cut down their population growth, would a probable interspecies war
decimate humankind? Of course, these are
mere hypotheses budding out from interesting fiction. What merits a closer look in Blade Runner 2049 is the film’s
treatment of women, which implies that despite all the advances in science,
women will hardly move up from being the sex objects that they may be now—at least
in the eyes of those who produced this movie.
Imagine, 2049 Los Angeles, flying cars and all—its boulevards illuminated
by gigantic advertisements of seductive or nearly nude women, in 3D to boot! Gentlemen, what’s the point?
