A beautiful and haunting film

Rating: 9/10 (19 March 2012)

Two of Ridley Scott's science fiction films make it up there on my "All Time Favourites" list, Alien and this.
Having not seen any other version (of which there are several), all of the various differences do not concern me, it is simply a review of the Director's Cut that I shall be writing here.
This film is an utter masterpiece. Pure and simple.
The visuals of the theme are fantastic, from the godlike Tyrell corporation's temple-designed room to the neon glow of street level and the influences of Chinese culture on the world Scott envisioned. This entire film is nasty and enclosed and dark and horrible. The world Scott created in this film is a retro-fitted slum essentially and a vision of a really quite nasty future. Each house and building has searchlights peering in, giving an impression of an all-knowing police force.
Harrison Ford is the Blade Runner of the title, a flawed ex-police given a job. Ford gives the best performance I've ever seen of him, an unsettlingly volatile man. But the real star lies with (one of my favourite actors) Rutger Hauer as replicant Roy Batty, a seething, intelligent, violent creation seeking out his creator to solve one of the most human problems of all.
His final soliloquy on a roof top to Harrison Ford's Deckard is one of the MOST beautiful series of words ever uttered on film. You'd have to be a cold hearted person to watch that scene and not feel at least a strong emotional tug.
Actually having remarkably little in common with the novel it's based on 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' works in the film's favour as the book is far too complex and confusing to turn into a feature film of any appreciable length. Instead, by taking a simple narrative idea and framing it in the world with some of the characters from the novel, you end up with an incredibly strong story that never seeks to confuse or confound you, with a 'bad guy' so compelling and human it crosses into anti-hero and anti-villain.
A fantastic film and one I will willingly watch again, a lot.
Read more at: http://thegiff.typepad.com/film_flare/