Blade Runner 2049 (4K)

Thirty-five years later and the sequel is more perfect (it’s possible) than the first film.

Official Synopsis
Three decades after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.

If I was being open and honest with you, dear readers, and I hope I’m this way with every review, I will say that I have a thick bias when it comes to Blade Runner. I was a huge fan when it came out in 1982 the first go around. I was an enormous fan back in college in the 90s when I studied and dissected Ridley Scott’s ultimate sci-fi film noir for 16 weeks. I learned so much about the behind the scenes and a shit ton about how the story came to be. I even knew that Deckard was a replicant before it was a popular theory, even going as far as to prove it (the red eyes, folks). Since its inception in 1982, it was and has been my number one film of all-time. I don’t make apologies about that, as I think it was one of the most meticulously crafted films in both character and story. It was the holy grail of movies for me and one that was sacred and best left untouched…you know, after the multiple editing attempts of it.

When I heard that Warner Bros. was going to produce a sequel, I was both happy and incredibly skeptical of the ‘why’. I mean, the first film was top of the line, so why in the world would you push your luck with a sequel? To boot, Ridley Scott, in all his glory filled past perfection wasn’t exactly winning the hearts of millions due to his alien prequels and whatever he made in 2000s. I appreciate the man because he owned the late 70s and 80s, but I honestly wouldn’t trust him to capture lightning in a bottle twice. In fact, I would be fearful that he would ruin the first. I know that sounds harsh, but I’m just being honest with you.

Things changed, though. Denis Villeneuve was brought on as director to take a script that Hampton Fancher and Michael Green help to put together from a Ridley Scott idea. I didn’t know much about Villeneuve when he was announced, but after seeing the likes of The Arrival, I knew this was the man for the job. He could capture the scope of a big world, while delivering a very personal and emotional story and set of characters. He was the man to do the job and there was no one else.

And what do you know? He didn’t disappoint. In fact, Villeneuve exceeded my expectations for the movie and actually managed to expand Scott’s original film and world. Villeneuve ended up making the world a helluva lot scarier than Scott could have and even brought Ryan Gosling to a new level of absolute badass that I never thought he had in him. This movie was so brilliantly done that it has officially taken the top spot of my all-time movies from the 1982 original opus. That’s saying a lot.

So, without further delay, let’s get right into what makes this movie perfect.

First, you should know that Fancher finally got to open up his Blade Runner film with a big farming brute and a cop bringing him down. If you watched Dangerous Days you’ll find the opening shot of Hampton Fancher’s original script for the first Blade Runner starting off Blade Runner 2049. I have been stuck on that cool fact since October and I just wanted to make sure you all knew it before we actually dug into the film. Yes, I know it’s random, but it’s worthy to bring up.

The first act starts with the introduction to Officer K, an investigator replicant built to track down older replicants to ‘retire’ them. The first one he finds in the opening act is an older Nexus 8 model that has spent the last 20 years as a farmer. After a brief, yet violent conversation, and subsequent retirement of the replicant, a broken/bloody K finds that this Nexus 8 has something it is hiding and that ‘thing’ would be a mysterious box underneath a dead tree being held up by wires. The box, which is dug up after K leaves the scene, is more than meets the eye. Before that is found out, though, K returns to the police station for his replicant baseline check-up, as well as payment, and then makes his way back to his apartment where his lovely hologram flatmate, Joi, is waiting for his arrival. K, who is completely in love with Joi, finds a way to get her free from her bonds inside his home’s hologram system, built by Wallace Industry, through a device he can carry around with him. In the midst of their celebration of her pseudo freedom from her confines, K is brought back into the station because the content of the dug up box was more than expected. Inside the box there were bones of a mother, who had just given birth, and also contained one tiny detail that makes the situation incredibly sensitive — she was a replicant. Before the world can find out, K is ordered to find the child of the replicant and retire it. If not, the world is almost certainly guaranteed to be turned upside down and replicants would be one step closer to human.

You could not have a bigger act that seemed like it was short and sweet. You get a great sense of who K is in the opening act, a replicant who is built to do one job without interruption. Gosling nails his character perfectly and carries the slow collapse of what K knows versus what K should believe through out the proceeding acts. It’s brilliant, subtle and it works. The seed is planted in the story in the first act and it blooms as K’s world collapses through out the remaining acts. The set up of act two is ever present and direct in act one. While the viewer won’t be able to see how the story is going to go, the path is certainly paved for the journey. It’s methodically built and beautifully packed with direct emotion that only Fancher could have developed in his story and Villeneuve could deliver through visuals. Villeneuve has his way of creating/building up the world through visuals, packing the class wars through character interaction, such as K trying to avoid conversation with fellow officers, who are clearly racist towards replicants, and laying out the ‘end of the world’ feeling that his dystopia emits through every dirty, overpopulated, neon-glaring corner existing in his Los Angeles. It’s quite the first act and one that perfectly sets up acts two and three. That’s the job of act one, though, and Blade Runner 2049’s performs it flawlessly.

The second act begins with simple detective work. K is tracking down the replicant who died, named Rachel, which connects Rick Deckard to the investigation. The majority of act two finds K trying to track down Deckard, but running into roadblocks left and right. In the midst of act two, K actually tracks down the whereabouts, or at least the beginning whereabouts, of Rachel and Deckard’s baby. Sadly, the connection to the child goes cold and K runs out of options, which finds him back at the farm at the beginning of act one. While investigating a bit more, K finds a baby sock, a mysterious number, which triggers a memory of his, which leads him to a memory maker to confirm the memory. The memory maker, a woman trapped behind glass thanks to a deficient immune system, confirms the worst fear that K could have — his memory isn’t fabricated, rather it’s real. Act two ends with K questioning his own replicant existence and pondering the possibility that he could be a human, which would make him the hunted. Ultimately, he finds himself back in the hands of police and way off his baseline, which means his life is now in danger, and not just with the police, but also with a deadly assassin from Wallace Industry that is looking for the replicant child.

The second act is the bulk of the film noir. It details out all the plot points, while not showing its hand at how the film can end. Could K be a human? Could the child that Rachel and Deckard had together be him? The film throws all the possibilities at your feet, while not giving you one hint at how this all could end. This is pure film noir at its finest and the methodical path laid before the audience is about as mysterious as one should expect from this genre. It’s gorgeous, it’s meticulous and it’s what makes this film perfect. You’re sent one direction, while another develops. To avoid spoilers, I won’t break this down any further.

By the end of act three, you’re in it. You’ve bought the ticket on this journey and you’re going to gasp at the final result. This act actually proves that this film wasn’t kidding around about how it was going to develop itself. This act makes sure that you fully understand you’re inside a film noir that is at the top of its class, and that the original film couldn’t do better. I don’t want to say too much for those who haven’t seen it, and there are a lot of you out there because the film didn’t make its money that it needed for a third film, but fully understand that you get the payoff when act three concludes. It delivers and it’s brilliant.

Overall, there’s nothing wrong with this movie. From start to finish, Blade Runner 2049 takes you into its world, lets you stay for the mystery and then concludes with you wanting more. It’s flawless, brilliant and perfect. It is my movie of the year for 2017, maybe for a lifetime.

On the 4K side of the tracks, it hits every beat. You get a lot of heavy lights/darks with a good amount of white/black for a brilliant amount of contrast. The depth of the contrast plays well into the scenes that feature neon-laced colors, as everything beautifully shines through in proper 4K. This movie is a reason to own a 4K player and it delivers with its 4K promises.

On the special features side of the tracks, here’s what you’re getting:

· Designing The World of Blade Runner 2049
· To Be Human: Casting Blade Runner 2049
· Prologues: 2036: Nexus Dawn
· Prologues: 2048: Nowhere to Run
· Prologues: 2022: Black Out
· Blade Runner 101: Blade Runners
· Blade Runner 101: The Replicant Evolution
· Blade Runner 101: The Rise of Wallace Corp
· Blade Runner 101: Welcome to 2049
· Blade Runner 101: Joi
· Blade Runner 101: Within the Skies

Good golly, you get quite a bit with this one. Enjoy it.