"It's Artificial? Of Course It Is!"

Rating: Null/10 (20 December 2000)

In the year 2019, Los Angeles is threatened by a gang of renegade replicants. A replicant is a robot which so closely approximates humanity that it is almost impossible to distinguish it from the real thing. Even the replicant itself may fail to realise that it is merely a machine. The robots are programmed with a maximum lifespan of four years, a safety device intended to prevent them becoming too knowledgeable, and therefore a threat to human beings. Furthermore, each replicant is provided with software which contains a fictitious but credible personal history, so it 'remembers' its own childhood.
The breakaway band of replicants poses a threat to Los Angeles. Usually, combat androids such as these spend their working lives in space, stuck on labour colonies orbiting the earth. Mutinies are usually contained locally but this gang has made its way back to earth because its leader, Roy Batty, wants to force the humans to extend his lifespan. Blade runners are essentially police officers who specialise in 'retiring' (that is, destroying) apostate robots. Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a blade runner and he is given the task of hunting down the four surviving members of the replicant band. What follows is a rather mundane cops-and-bad-guys movie in a quirkily futuristic setting.
And what of this future world? Cops patrol the city in black-and-white squad cars, just like in 1982, but now the cars can hover in the air. The depiction of downtown architecture is visually impressive, but unfortunately it is patent nonsense. Urban traffic and the science of robotics will not be like this in 2019. This science fiction is so much science baloney.
"Watch out for water," says J.F. Sebastian as he shows Priss to his apartment, and it is a warning that should be standard in every Ridley Scott film. Why does Ridley always conceive of the future in terms of steam gouts, dripping ceilings and restless searchlights? And why, for that matter, must a man in a fez always be devious and cowardly?
Rutger Hauer makes a terrific villain, mixing suavete with chilling ruthlessness. Daryl Hannah and Brion James are interesting casting choices as the replicants Priss and Leon, and Harrison Ford is Harrison Ford. The character of Rachel (played by Sean Young) adds intellectual depth to an otherwise pedestrian shoot-'em-up. Her moment of tragic self-comprehension is the best thing in the film.
I for one fail to see why this film is slavered over and hailed a cult masterpiece. The storyline is dull and no character, with the possible exception of Rachel, has any internal life. The final symbol of mortality is attractive enough, but why was Batty holding a dove in the first place?