Overrated style over substance snore fest

Rating: 5/10 (19 June 2013)

Plot, Character, Setting, Symbols, Themes: The five components of storytelling, from greatest to least important. Ridley Scott's overemphasis on the last three didn't blind me like so many others to the fact the the plot was limp and the characters were dull.
Sure, Blade Runner's visuals were brilliant and the moody tones in the Vangelis soundtrack enhanced the dystopian future setting, but the plot? It's nothing more than Deckard (Harrison Ford) hunting down androids who want to live past their shut down date. Cool premise, I agree, but It's basically a 45 minute Star Trek episode stretched into a two hour show off of visual effects.
Even as a 9 year old when I first saw this snore fest the only thing I remembered was the female android's nipples and the flying ships. Years later, in my twenties, when I thought my tastes had matured, I sat in a darkened theatre to see Ridley Scott's directors cut, sans supposed "annoying" and "unnecessary" Harrison Ford voice-over, that's all that kept me awake through the film.
Ford's narration was put into the film by the studio because there was so much dead time between action scenes. Even though a golden rule of writing is to "Show it-don't tell it," the producers wisely realized that without the Ford narration, few audiences members could tolerate the slow pace. The only reason this film made any money was because of Ford's star power and it would have completely bombed were it not for the voice-over.
So by the time we got to Rutger Hauer's end of film, "should have been Oscar nominated" soliloquy, I was happy the film was finally almost over. I didn't care about the "mind blowing" twist at the end inferring that Ford's character Deckard was a replicant either. I was just happy I could go home and get a sleep in my bed instead of the movie theatre chair.
High ratings on IMDb for Blade Runner a simply because of non-random sampling bias. Watch it again people, especially if you have insomnia, the pedestrian plotting and flat characters will put you to sleep.