A Science Fiction Futuristic Film Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (24 October 2012)

A blend of science fiction and noir detective fiction, Blade Runner was a box office and critical bust upon its initial exhibition, but its unique postmodern production design became hugely influential within the sci-fi genre, and the film gained a significant cult following that increased its stature. This film directed by Ridley Scott features Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
It depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in November 2019 in which genetically engineered organic robots called replicants—visually indistinguishable from adult humans—are manufactured by the powerful Tyrell Corporation as well as by other "mega–manufacturers" around the world. Their use on Earth is banned and replicants are exclusively used for dangerous, menial or leisure work on off-world colonies. Replicants who defy the ban and return to Earth are hunted down and "retired" by police special operatives known as "Blade Runners". The plot focuses on a brutal and cunning group of recently escaped replicants hiding in Los Angeles and the burnt out expert Blade Runner, Rick Deckard, who reluctantly agrees to take on one more assignment to hunt them down.a retired cop in Los Angeles circa 2019. L.A. has become a pan-cultural dystopia of corporate advertising, pollution and flying automobiles, as well as replicants, human-like androids with short life spans built by the Tyrell Corporation for use in dangerous off-world colonization. Deckard's former job in the police department was as a talented blade runner, a euphemism for detectives that hunt down and assassinate rogue replicants. Called before his one-time superior, Deckard is forced back into active duty. A quartet of replicants led by Roy Batty has escaped and headed to Earth, killing several humans in the process. After meeting with the eccentric Eldon Tyrell, creator of the replicants, Deckard finds and eliminates Zhora, one of his targets. Attacked by another replicant, Leon, Deckard is about to be killed when he's saved by Rachael, Tyrell's assistant and a replicant who's unaware of her true nature. In the meantime, Batty and his replicant pleasure model lover, Pris use a dying inventor, J.F. Sebastian to get close to Tyrell and murder him. Deckard tracks the pair to Sebastian's, where a bloody and violent final confrontation between Deckard and Batty takes place on a skyscraper rooftop high above the city.
Misunderstood when it first hit theaters, the influence of Ridley Scott's mysterious, neo-noir Blade Runner has deepened with time.From the opening shot of a Los Angeles cityscape at night in the year 2019, it is clear that Scott has conjured up something special.The movie's spectacular futuristic vision of Los Angeles--a perpetually dark and rainy metropolis that's the nightmare antithesis of "Sunny Southern California"--is still its most seductive feature, an otherworldly atmosphere in which you can immerse yourself. The movie's shadowy visual style, along with its classic private-detective/murder-mystery plot line makes it one of the few science fiction pictures to legitimately claim a place in the film noir tradition.Added to that,it's an overwhelming, immersive experience, a total creation of a possible future so complete that you don't need exposition to know how we got from here to there Overall,it is a visually remarkable, achingly human sci-fi masterpiece.