Time to Try

Rating: 10/10 (9 September 2014)

When I first saw Blade Runner I was unsure if I actually enjoyed it. It left me unsettled. The slower pace and moody content weren't what I was used to. It isn't a regular Hollywood blockbuster film. Then I let it sink in, and I realised that it was phenomenal, and I had to watch it again, and again, and again.
The first version that I watched was the one featuring Deckard's voice-over, Rick Deckard being the world-weary detective played by a smooth Harrison Ford, which is not favoured by film purists, but works for me as it links it to the film noir genre. The version without the voice-over is just as good, but it does fill in some richer details and lends the proceedings more of a hard-boiled feel.
Mention must be made of the scintillating Vangelis soundtrack, the use of the electronic instruments clashing with the natural orchestral score mirroring the struggle between natural and synthetic life in the film.
The look of Blade Runner is magnificent, owing a large debt to graphic artist Moebius and to the Futurist artistic movement. Blade Runner contains a stunning depiction of a living, breathing near-future - but is any of it real? We know early on that Rachael, the cool Sean Young, is not human, but a Replicant, or synthesised robotic cyborg, known as skin jobs to the less than sensitive police clientele. Yet are the Replicants, who witness things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion¦ C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time¦ like tears in rain¦, which is one of the most beautiful speeches in the history of cinema, are they perhaps more real than the seedy cops who live in squalid hovels and question suspects in smoky offices? Blade Runner gives us a near perfect vision of a dystopian future that has not been bettered. From the flashing, pixellated advertising billboards, through the neon sign-decked side streets, with their market stalls selling ersatz animals and vat-grown human organs as created by the Tyrell Corporation, up to the skies filled with flying vehicles and flaming smokestacks, each enthralling element is skilfully crafted and put on display for us to gawp wild-eyed and open-mouthed at.
As Deckard tracks down four rebel Replicants, their leader Roy Batty, given an exuberant performance by Rutger Hauer, he becomes uncertain about the task he has been handed, but has to see it through, or die in the process.
The film, in its Directors Cut, also manages to achieve the astounding feat of turning reality inside out in your head, flipping the world on its axis in a highly disorientating way. This film will change the way that you view the world.