Running with Blades

The word on the street is that Blade Runner 2049 (2017) is even better than the original. For certain values of "better", we agree.

It starts with a blade runner visiting a greenhouse out in the sticks to retire a replicant, big hulking Dave Bautista. This blade runner (Ryan Gosling) is a replicant, too - the new, compliant kind. Buatista makes fun of him, mentioning a mysterious "miracle". After he has put Bautista down, Gosling looks around and finds a dead tree with a single flower in front of it. Later, he comes back to discover a buried body beneath the tree, a woman who died in childbirth. Further investigation shows that the woman is a replicant.

Now, our villain is Jared Leto, the head of an evil corporation that took over the assets of Tyrell Corp. Leto is very interested in creating a self-reproducing replicant - the old way is too slow to populate the "offworld colonies" with slaves. Leto lives in a concrete castle with a replicant enforcer named Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) and likes to birth replicants and kill them as soon as they wake up, just for kicks. So, a bad guy.

Gosling also has an artificial companion, a hologram played by Ana de Armas. She is the perfect woman, but tied to the home projection system until he got her a portable unit. It's an interesting sidetrack - a replicant with a hologram girlfriend - but doesn't really go anyplace.

In searching for this replicant-born-of-a-replicant, Gosling starts to learn about himself, about early memories, which he knows are implanted. Unless he is the born replicant: a trip to the memory artist Carla Juri doesn't clear this up. A visit to Gaff (Edward James Olmos) in the old folks home doesn't either.

Finally, we meet up with Deckard (Harrison Ford) who has been hiding out since the end of the last movie. This reminded me a lot of the discovery of Jeff Bridges hiding out in Tron: Legacy. He's pining after Sean Young, in this movie as CGI only.

Although the look of the film is very "Blade Runner turned up to 11", it is also a very different look: This future isn't rainy and crowded, it's dry and barren - has population crashed in the ~30 years since the first movie? Or does our director just have his attention on the quieter parts? Or is he just trying to save on extras?

The music, by Hans Zimmer. is also a more intense version of the original Vangelis. It seems that director Denis Villenueuve (Arrival) was going to use his usual composer, Johann Johannson, but Zimmer got the retro synth feel just right.

So, gorgeous, thoughtful, maybe even deep, with all the feelings (and numbenings) turned up to 11. A worthy sequel.