Blade Runner 2049 is certainly the best film in this recent trend
of many-years-later sequels to popular movies or franchises. That’s not much of
a bar to clear, admittedly, but unlike so many of those, it doesn’t settle for simply
riding audience nostalgia. This is a work of big ideas that meaningfully
expands and deepens the mythology and character of its predecessor, and is a
worthy successor to it in every way. If the original Blade Runner is science fiction’s The Godfather (and many sci-fi fans claim it is), 2049 can be called the genre’s The Godfather Part II.
The original created a sprawling,
jaw-dropping future Los Angeles that is iconic and influential in sci-fi. The
picture took things pretty slow, allowing the viewer to drink in all the
upfront wonders and the subtle but highly imaginative trappings in the
background of this world (it’s still impressive even though we’re now only two
years from catching up with the film’s date). 2049 returns to this setting thirty years later. It’s a much
grimmer future, with a harshly askew climate that adds a faint sense of
real-world urgency. Yet it’s still gorgeous to look at.
Between the two movies, we’re
told, replicants, the humanlike artificial persons that were forbidden on Earth
in the original, have since become more advanced and are now legal. The narrative
follows the replicant K (Ryan Gosling), a “blade runner” who hunts unstable
older models for the LAPD. During his most recent case, he uncovers evidence
suggesting that replicants have gained an ability that makes them even more
human than previously thought. While tasked with destroying all evidence of
this finding, K takes it upon himself to uncover the truth about it, which involves
grappling with his own existence as well as seeking out the long-disappeared
blade runner Deckard (Harrison Ford).
The film likewise takes its sweet
time, but it feels more deliberate this time. There’s not as much time to
simply sit back and look at the future’s dystopic beauty (not that there aren’t
some cool new touches and environments). It makes up for that, though, by
unraveling its mystery in a way that’s both captivating and contemplative. Denis
Villeneuve’s direction finds exactly the right storytelling pace, never
stalling and never revealing too much. And though the picture doesn’t stop
as often to look around, it does set aside some time for some quiet, moody scenes that
reveal much about the characters.
The performances are terrific
from top to bottom. Even the small supporting roles—Robin Wright as Gosling’s martinet
superior, Mackenzie Davis as the “pleasure model” who’s revealed to be a figure
of greater depth—are of high quality. In the villain department, Sylvia Hoeks
is an efficiently scene-chewing menace who upstages even her superior Jared Leto,
nonetheless great as a divinity-complexed industrialist. Also a standout is Ana
de Armas as a holographic relationship program, whose arc eventually becomes
affecting and pushes the central theme of what makes a soul to a new extreme.
But, it’s the two blade runners who
take the crown amongst the cast. Gosling convincingly plays spiritually burned
out. Not cynical like the standard hero,
but completely without hope and numb. But his findings over the course of the
plot imbue him with a sense of purpose and humanity, and he becomes palpably
overwhelmed. It’s a tremendously emotional performance, made even more
impressive because Gosling exhibits such
feeling while never quite breaking the cold, not-quite-human façade. And Ford
is probably the best he’s ever been on film, not his normal lovable gruff or
earnest righteousness, but a truly broken man. It’s a little touching.
2049 seemingly doesn’t really offer any points of ambiguity like
its predecessor, so fans don’t have the fun element of watching for clues which
may or may not mean something (although, it also doesn’t definitively answer
the question of the true nature of Ford’s character that fans still debate).
But it offers plenty of other stuff to chew on: about playing God, about what’s
real and the nature of memory, allegory for racism. And, of course, what it
truly means to be human. This is an excellent film.
