Classic American films: Blade Runner 2049 – immaculate but uninvolving Denis Villeneuve sequel
- Like Ridley Scott, who made the original Blade Runner, Villeneuve is great at world-building, and every frame of the 2017 film is pinch-yourself beautiful
- But its sexual politics are troubling, bringing back Harrison Ford’s Deckard doesn’t fully work, and for a treatise on humanity it doesn’t have much of its own
In this regular feature series on some of the most talked-about films, we examine the legacy of classics, re-evaluate modern blockbusters, and revisit some of the most memorable lines in film. We continue this week with Blade Runner 2049, the 2017 film by director Denis Villeneuve.
Considering Ridley Scott, the director of the original Blade Runner (1982), took 25 years and seven versions to perfect his vision, the prospect of a Denis Villeneuve sequel is as intriguing as it fraught.
Like Scott, Villeneuve is great at world-building, but no stranger to issues with storytelling – see the end of Prisoners, the middle of Arrival, and all of Enemy. So either he’s perfect for the job or a disaster waiting to happen.
In fact, the resulting film pitches itself about halfway between perfection and disaster. And, like the replicant played by Ryan Gosling, it’s very, very handsome with a blankness at its centre – not quite organic, nor entirely artificial.
The year, in case you hadn’t guessed, is 2049, 30 years after the original, which was loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. As before, Blade Runners like K (Gosling) are replicants (bioengineered androids) hunting rogue replicants to “retire” (kill) them.