Ridley Scott's finest - a story of humanity

Rating: Null/10 (24 February 2008)

This is my favorite movie. It's rare that a sci-fi movie ages well, but this one still has the power to awe.
*Possible spoilers*
Like most great movies, this is a film about redemption. Deckard, the "Bladerunner" is washed up, compromised, so disgusted with his job (a cop who kills rogue androids) that he has turned his back on it. Under pressure from his old boss, he comes out of retirement for a special assignment: to find and terminate several androids of a new and special type, who have landed illegally on Earth and so far eluded capture.
What happens to him, this time, is that as he finds and kills them, one by one, he is more shocked than ever by how human-like they have become. Introduced to Rachel, one of the new type of androids, by the android-maker, he finds himself struggling not to fall in love with her.
*Definite spoilers*
The movie, soaked in religious references, reaches its climax in Deckard's confrontation with Roy Batty, who except for Rachel (whom Deckard is hiding), is the last surviving android. He is also the most powerful and most deadly of them all. Roy's death, which shows him to have leaped beyond humanity to something above, is portrayed as a redeeming sacrifice, which liberates Deckard. Roy pours out the last remaining seconds of the life he loves so much in an act of pure forgiveness, going so far as to save his persecutor from certain death.
Deckard can no longer do his job; more importantly, he no longer needs to fear or doubt his feelings for the android Rachel, or worry that she isn't really human: in the ways that really matter, in compassion and self-giving, Roy has shown him that the androids have surpassed their makers.
A very powerful and moving film.