Review of Blade Runner 2049 (2017) by Jonathan%20 B — 22 May 2018

It made no sense to bring Harrison Ford back. His story arc at the end of the first movie was complete. Shoehorning him and Sean Young into the movie was forced and desperate. Rick Deckard is not an integral part of the Blade Runner universe.

Just because a character is important to us does not make him the center of the Blade Runner world. Also, Blade Runner is not about freedom, it's about what it means to be human. This pale sequel attempts to answer the question of what makes one human by saying that dying for a cause makes someone human.

Ignoring how that makes no sense, that goes against the themes of the original. The original was also clever and ambiguous about whether or not replicants were people or just machines and whether or not Blade Runners were murderers or just retiring unneeded technology.

This movie lacks the subtlety and grace of the original by insulting its audience by saying "Fuck it, replicants are an unobvious metaphor for an oppressed minority and Blade Runners are fugitive slavers.

Can't let the audience be confused." Another problem with bringing Deckard back is that he doesn't have much of an identity outside of Ford's acting persona (playing tough but vulnerable men).

Obviously Ford's approach to that has changed in 40 years so when he plays Deckard again, he doesn't seem like Deckard, he just seems like old Harrison Ford. It's not like when he returned to the role of Indiana Jones or Han Solo where, like those movies or not, he actually did feel like an older version of those characters.

Why? Because those characters were better established than Deckard, who was clearly not intended to be the protagonist of an entire franchise, let alone meant to return 40 years later for an unnecessary sequel.

Ford aside, the acting was terrible. Gosling was wooden, Jared Leto was just embarrassingly bad, Robin Wright was clearly just there for the paycheck, etc. All the characters were also incredibly bland.

Most disappointing of all was Luv, a very, very poor replacement for Roy Batty who had no personality outside of being the tough "bad girl". Having pretty lights does not automatically make a movie good.

Looking "purty" does not make up for a terrible script and terrible acting. I haven't seen any of Villenue's other work and after this I am in no hurry. The emperor has no clothes.