The 2017 dystopian thriller was directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Hampton Francher and Michael Green. It’s the story of replicant Blade Runner K ( Ryan Gosling ) on the quest to stop a war between replicants and humans.
Context
First some backstory, if you haven’t seen the original film from 1982, I highly suggest you do, because it definately will make things easier for you to understand. If you have seen it, the “context” paragraphs may not be necessary for you, unless you need a refresher.
Earth has been turned into a dystopian world order, ravaged by overpopulation. The World Order has also made restrictions on the world as a whole, humans are unencouraged from essentially being humans. It’s all about survival in this cold, cold world.
Taking place in the distant future, there are of course some technological advancements. For example, in the original film, there’s a life-like robotic snake because the cost of “real things” have gone up so high, no average human being can afford them. Most people in this society below the age of 50 or so haven’t even seen a tree, instead living their entire lives in this dystopian Coruscant-like world.
There are also replicants, cloned human designed to be as emotionless as possible and serve humanity without disobedience. Some of them however, do go rogue, which is what the Blade Runner’s are for. There job is to hunt them down, away from the public eye. Much like a robot version of the MIB, just much, much darker.
Spoilers Ahead:
PLOT:
The film opens up with K meeting Sapper Morton ( Dave Bautista ), a replicant whose identity is breifly left a mystery. After a quick fight to the death, K comes out victorious and finds evidence that replicants are capable of biological reproducition, there’s a replicant child. After speaking to his cold boss, Lt. Joshi ( Robin Wright ). He’s tasked to destroy all evidence of this, in fear it could start a war between the humans and the replicants. By now it’s blatantly clear that K is indeed a replicant, due to how emotionless his responses are to nearly everything.
K also lives with his “wife” Joi ( Ana de Armas ) a holographic wife programmed to act as a “perfect” woman, in their tiny apartment. Despite being 100% fake, he 100% cares about her, and treats her as if she were human. She acts as a metaphorical heart to K, and depsite being a program, genuinally feels like an actual character. Further evidence that the world has turned dark and grim. The fact that real human connections are no longer wished upon by the World Order, instead opting for a cheap imitation of the real deal. Even something as pure as a piece of music has been censored for the masses. It’s off by just a single beat, yet it’s that single beat that changes the whole song. It’s that teensy, tiny bit off.
Also, in case your expecting Harrison Ford to be a massive character, he’s not. In fact he doesn’t even show up until nearly halfaway into the film’s runtime. But you better believe his cheese-loving self steals the show once he does. Long story short, K is on a quest to find Ford in order to get information on the replicant child.
CONCLUSSION:
Villeneuve once again proved to the world his unique abilities in creating an unforgiving atmospheric vibe in his films. Though I do wish there were more Harrison Ford, the story ultimatly didn’t need him. It was Ryan Gosling’s story, the story of a replicant starting to realize the cracks in his society. A story merely enhanced, in ways paying homage to Harrison Ford.
Overall, Blade Runner 2049 was an excellent film. Though I do wish that Jared Leto were cut out of it ( largely due to my personal dislike for him ), seriously, the story would have been entirely the same without him. Or if they included him, at least take someone less weird. Forest Whitaker, Michael Madsen, Aaron Paul and Jesse Eisenberg, all unconventional picks, that would have been several times better than Leto.
In the end, Blade Runner 2049 was a more than worthy sequel, which in many ways was even better than the original. 9/10.
-The Screenwriter