2049: it’s a slow burn

Watched Blade Run­ner 2049.

It is not a cheap cash grab, but a wor­thy fol­low up that prob­a­bly does bet­ter than the orig­i­nal (my ‘orig­i­nal’ is Director’s Cut). I would say the knowl­edge of the orig­i­nal is strong­ly rec­om­mend­ed in or­der to un­der­stand the theme, sto­ry and tone. Of course you can de­lib­er­ate­ly ig­nore my ad­vice, but if you end up dis­lik­ing 2049 that way, that’s clear­ly your problem.

I think the com­mon mis­un­der­stand­ing among those who haven’t seen the orig­i­nal Blade Run­ner is that it’s an ac­tion film. You have Han Solo with a big gun in the poster (above), so the as­sump­tion is warranted. 

And most peo­ple’s first im­pres­sion, my­self in­clud­ed, would be that it’s bor­ing. You feel that you mis­un­der­stood the film, ad­just your ex­pec­ta­tion, and watch it again. That’s how I came to like it. I think that’s the case for many oth­er peo­ple; it did­n’t do well when it was re­leased, and gained pop­u­lar­i­ty lat­er. Be­ing tonal­ly faith­ful to the orig­i­nal, I think 2049 will also have a sim­i­lar re­cep­tion. It’s a slow burn and a first timer may find it bor­ing. (That’s not to say every­one will love it af­ter mul­ti­ple viewing)

2049 is good at keep­ing you en­gaged the whole time de­spite the slow pac­ing, be­cause of strong art di­rec­tion and cin­e­matog­ra­phy. The vi­su­als ab­solute­ly live up to the orig­i­nal, and give you plen­ty of time to ap­pre­ci­ate each shot. 

The dystopi­an LA cityscape is beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed with flashy ad­ver­tise­ments, rain, and air pol­lu­tion, so are de­sert­ed out­skirts. CGI hu­man char­ac­ters are also im­pres­sive, in fact I found it more im­pres­sive than build­ings or machines. 

You might think 2049 is cheat­ing be­cause it is us­ing CGI, but it is just as hard to make a con­vinc­ing CGI to a point where every­thing seems nat­ur­al. Even in 2017 we have lots of movies with shab­by CGI ef­fects that im­me­di­ate­ly put you off, but this film can­not be fur­ther from it. The 2049 team is do­ing the best job hu­man­ly pos­si­ble to­day, and I pay equal re­spect to both the orig­i­nal and new art team.

Blade Run­ner 2049 takes place 30 years af­ter the orig­i­nal. I do not ex­plain the sto­ry here, but I’d say it’s writ­ten and told bet­ter than the orig­i­nal. In my opin­ion, the sto­ry was the weak­est part in the orig­i­nal and metaphor and im­pli­ca­tion of it was more in­ter­est­ing. Those el­e­ments are giv­en very clever twists. 

The sto­ry­telling is sup­port­ed by great act­ing. I am usu­al­ly not a fan of Ryan Gosling, but his weak­ness in act­ing (in my opin­ion) was used to the movie’s ad­van­tage, which makes his cast­ing per­fect. Har­ri­son Ford’s act­ing in the orig­i­nal was in­con­sis­tent and in­ten­tion­al­ly ter­ri­ble in some parts, but he is much bet­ter this time around. Jared Leto’s per­for­mance was ter­rif­ic com­pared to re­cent Jok­er role from Sui­cide Squad.

The orig­i­nal was a vi­su­al and philo­soph­i­cal mas­ter­piece that com­pen­sate for its rather weak sto­ry­telling. Its slow pace helped us tak­ing in the uni­verse, and re­mains cap­ti­vat­ing to this day. Blade Run­ner 2049 to­tal­ly keeps up the same stan­dard in every de­part­ment, if not bet­ter. It is very con­fi­dent­ly made, and puts a lot of trust in the au­di­ence’s in­tel­li­gence and pa­tience, which I appreciate. 

It could be 10/10, but I need to see it again to con­firm that score. For now, I set­tle with 9.

There was an­oth­er favourite film de­spite star­ring Ryan Gosling, which is LA LA Land. Blade Run­ner 2049 also takes place in Los An­ge­les, so my ac­ci­den­tal sweet spot is Gosling + LA.
 
 

—toshi oma­gari

Flom­mist Toshi Oma­gari fights many things, most re­cent of which is the auto-cor­rec­tion of his ti­tle to florist. Copy­right © 2017 Toshi Omagari.

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