Thereâs not a lot you can say about the new âBlade Runner,â except that itâs even better than the original, which is considered one of the greatest science-fiction films of all time.
What Ridley Scott built in the first movie, director Denis Villeneuve turns into another masterpiece. You can shuffle through whatever phrases youâd like: tour de force, piĂšce de rĂ©sistance, the Ford Awakens.
Iâll try to get a bit more specific, but everything from the first scene to the last is a spoiler. Thereâs even a little text on screen just setting up exposition that Iâd love to tell you about, but nah. If I said anything, Warner Bros. would own my life or something. Iâm not exactly sure.
The studio is so anxious about potential spoilers getting out that it made critics at the screening sign an NDA. From my experience, thatâs atypical. But I just signed my life away like it was an iTunes service agreement because who has time to read those? I have to jam to sick beats immediately. After the screening and the NDA, the publicist then followed up with a phone call to additionally tell me everything I couldnât talk about in interviews with the cast.
I got my call while at Cracker Barrel. They have breakfast all day, so they have me all day. I learned pretty quickly that when a heated game of checkers is going on behind you and the lemonadeâs a-flowinâ, itâs pretty hard to hear there. Thankfully, I already knew what couldnât be discussed: Everything.
Speaking with Harrison Ford and Jared Leto, they also couldnât really say much about the movie. The iTunes agreement mustâve gotten to them, too. Though, their reactions were effusive.
Ford told me he was âdelightedâ over the film and would later tell Build Series host Ricky Camilleri itâs âfucking awesome.â Leto said the screenplay was âabsolutely mind-blowing.â
âIt was an incredible script. I was so happy they were making another one regardless of if I was in it or not,â said Leto.
The official synopsis tells us:
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge whatâs left of society into chaos. Kâs discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
Thanks for nothinâ, Warner Bros. Thatâs barely even setting it up.
Though, after watching the movie, itâs clear why they want the secrecy. I wouldnât want to spoil it for anyone, anyway. A movie like this doesnât come along often. Itâs not Cracker Barrel breakfast.
What I can say is this new tale makes the original feel more like a prologue. Itâs necessary backstory â you know, being one of the best sci-fi films ever â but itâs still backstory, leading to what we get in â2049.â
The performances are excellent across the board. Gosling, Ford, Leto, Robin Wright and Ana de Arma are all brilliant, but perhaps the real star is Villeneuveâs dystopian Los Angeles.
The first âBlade Runnerâ was known for stunning visuals of a high-tech yet dilapidated future. â2049â carries on this idea with a mesmerizing color palette presented by Villeneuve and production designer Dennis Gassner. Flashy, futuristic advertisements beg for your attention, while the ominous lighting at Niander Wallaceâs (Leto) facilities sets a perfectly menacing tone for a practical reason. Wallace himself is visually impaired. Itâs not just dark to be cool.
As Avril Lavigne once said, âItâs more punk to tell people youâre not punk than to sit there and say that you are punk.â
Thatâs so punk.