IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review
To begin, Blade Runner 2049 [2017] (directed by Denis Villeneuve, screenplay by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green, story by Hampton Fancher based on the characters from the novel "Do Androids Dream Electronic Sheep?" [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Philip K. Dick [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is A SUPREMELY WORTHY SEQUEL both stylistically and thematically to the neo-noir scify dystopian classic Blade Runner [1982] [wikip] [IMDb] that helped define the SciFy genre _for_ my generation (Yes, we all loved Gene Roddenberry's far more optimistic Star Trek series / franchise and the wondrous possibilities of the "space bar" scene in the first Star Wars [1977] [wikip] [IMDb] film, but I can not think of a single SciFi enthusiast of my generation who was not left simply in awe -- even if it was an awe tinged with disappointment / horror (over the vision of the future, our future, portrayed) -- by that first Blade Runner [1982] [wikip] [IMDb] film).
Set a generation (thirty years) after the first Blade Runner film -- which was nominally set in a rainy Hong Kong / Tokyo resembling dystopic Los Angeles of 2019 -- the current film continues with the post-apocalyptic feel (exact cause/causes unclear), with Los Angeles (and Southern California, all the way to Las Vegas) covered with a persistent sulfur-like (urine evoking) yellowish and ashy / snowy (?) haze (if the latter is true, then so much for global warming, but ...). The sulfur / ash evokes evokes the 17th Canto of Dante's Inferno (reserved for back then called Usurers, today perhaps for overly greedy Bankers / Capitalists, sentenced to an eternity in a scorching Desert (all life having been sucked / extracted / strip-mined out of it) and being pummeled by a persistent scorching / fire-y sulfurous rain. The cold, evokes perhaps an excellent recent Russian dystopic SciFi film (that made the festival rounds here a few years back) Under Electric Clouds (orig. Под электрическими облаками / Pod elektricheskimi oblakami) [2015] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*) itself more or less obviously influenced by Philip Dick's book [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] on which Ridley Scott's original Blade Runner [1982] [wikip] [IMDb] was based. (Indeed given the Blade Runner films' thematics of oligarchic capitalism and dystopia, the repeated allusions to contemporary Russia in this film -- perhaps paralleling the allusions to the crowded / chaotic cities of East Asia in the original -- are fascinating in themselves).
Thematically, the film continues to explore the boundary between (Human) Life / Tool. In the scenario(s) explored in Dick's book and the Blade Runner films, humanity proved capable of creating human-LIKE androids, in the Blade Runner movies called Replicants. These Replicants, despite even being engineered using DNA were still considered to be SYNTHETIC, created already as adults, hence with no childhood memories except those implanted within them to keep them at peace. And the purpose of their creation by their human engineers (at a monstrous Corporation named after its founder Tyrell) was to _serve humans_ as basically slaves, usually at "off world" colonies being rapidly constructed because the earth was so clearly devastated / already destroyed.
Some of these "Replicants" would naturally revolt against their human masters -- the theme of the first film -- demanding both freedom and "more life" (most were being "kept down" in the first film by being artificially programmed to have only a 5 year life span). In the current film, the Replicants were being controlled no longer by being programed to have an artificially short life span, but by being "genetically programmed" to simply obey / not resist their human masters.
In the current film, the BLIND "visionary" (played by Jared Leto) now heading the Tyrell Corporation, becomes obsessed with the possibility of finding a way for the Replicants to simply reproduce (like humans do) themselves: "They could reproduce far more rapidly than we could ever manufacture them allowing us to colonize ten or a hundred times more off-worlds than we do already" BUT (1) THAT would make the Replicants EVEN MORE INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM HUMANS than ever before, and (2) THERE COME TO BE RUMORS that among the few surviving first generation Replicants (the few who WEREN'T ARTIFICIALLY PROGRAMMED TO DIE AFTER 5 YEARS, or were able to have that programming removed from them) _some_ REPRODUCTION had apparently taken place already.
The rest of the story ensues ...
Yet the film is not merely about the relationship between Humans and DNA-based and yet largely artificially created Human-like androids called Replicants. There are further (and even more restricted) intelligent, now completely virtual / hologram driven beings called Joi-s, one of which, named Joi (played by Ana de Armas) is _owned_ yet also arguably _loved_ by the principal Replicant in the current story named "K" (played by Ryan Gosling). She is his principal companion, and he does treat her well, _purchasing for her_ all kinds of fascinating upgrades to _extend her holographic range_ (extend her CAGE...). But ... at the end of the day she is but a _programmed hologram_ and she is, once more, as he is as well ... PROGRAMMED TO SERVE ... he to serve humans, she to serve her "owner" ... and yes, the VIEWER is invited to be REVOLTED by the fundamental injustice of it all.
It all makes for ONE FASCINATING / THOUGHT PROVOKING FILM !
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