Ridley Scott has taken to producing film sequels with a vengeance with his recent Prometheus and Alien Covenant films in the Alien series. Now Blade Runner 2049 has been released.
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Alarm bells start ringing when a filmmaker can’t think of an intriguing title for a sequel to a milestone film. Simply adding a year, 2049, is a lazy way to update the original Blade Runner.
However, the title is only a drawcard. It’s the contents of the film that determine if it’s a worthwhile follow-up to the original.
Like replicants, the re-engineered humans who are central to both Blade Runner films, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner 2049 attempts to re-invent the original story of Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a blade runner whose job it is to eliminate rogue replicants.
In Blade Runner 2049, blade runner “K” (Ryan Gosling) is sent to solve a mystery surrounding a buried container discovered at a remote, desolate location.
K is a cold-blooded operative. He has to be to complete his task of deactivating (that is killing) replicants that choose to remain active beyond their expiry date.
They are so humanlike that they, in many cases, don’t realise they are genetically engineered creations who are built rather than born.
One revelation regarding replicants, in particular, sends shockwaves to the corporation (led by the messianic Niander Wallace) that creates replicants. It has the potential to change the relationship between human masters and replicant slaves.
K learns things that reveal truths about his own identity, although his assumptions do not always prove accurate. He is tested, physically, emotionally and psychologically.
K’s relationship with his hologram partner, Joi, questions our dependence on and connection with artificial intelligence that was handled delicately in the underrated film Her.
The world of Blade Runner 2049 is as bleak as the Los Angeles in the original film. Skyscraper-high hologram advertising bombards everyday workers, the world is cold and damp from continuous rain or desolate and deserted due to radioactive contamination.
Messages about how humans look after this planet and the consequences of our carelessness operate in the background as the story unfolds. The grinding, industrial soundscape pounds your eardrums and accentuates the slow-paced, bleak visuals.
Whether or not the future will look like the world Villeneuve has re-created for BR 2049, with flying cars, landscapes burned by radiation and rainstorms that last for weeks on end, is not the issue.
Blade Runner 2049 is about the need to find one’s true identity, what it means to be human and the impact of our dalliance with sentient technology.
