Review of Blade Runner 2049 (2017) by Paul R — 28 Dec 2017

Holy crap, Blade Runner 2049 is astounding. The design of the world is again top notch like the original, I loved all the new technologies and the look of the city, but I think this absolutely surpasses the original in terms of story and characters.

I respect the original a lot for what it did for movies, but as a story some parts of it fell flat for me; this seems to have a much clearer idea of what it wants to do and say. I don't want to spoil anything, but I found pretty much every character (even minor ones) sympathetic in their own way; I think it does a better job than the original of examining what it means to be human through different lenses.

This is also one of the most gorgeously shot movies I've ever seen, I kept getting distracted from the story by just marveling at how beautiful everything looked and how much there was to see. The sound design and score were also incredible; I feel you could watch it with your eyes closed and still get so much of the emotion and context out of just how the movie sounds.

The cast all do amazing jobs, it's still a slow-burn but the action that is there is brutal and exciting, my only criticism would be that it dragged in the third act for me. Fantastic movie though, through and through.