Ridley Scott's intense interpretation of a bounty hunter's mission to 'retire' rogue replicants fighting for their lives

Rating: Null/10 (9 October 1999)

Director Ridley Scott's list of movies is a catalogue of some of the most visually innovative and emotive films in the Hollywood mainstream. Blade Runner, as one might expect, is no exception. The darkling monolithic near-future vision is comprehensively evoked and consistent.
Performances from the strong cast are immersive and involving. It is the over-riding theme, though, which makes Blade Runner one of my favourite movies ever; that of mortality, lust for life, the transitory nature of one's being, the tragedy of self-awareness and love - it is all so fleeting.
Though the movie tracks Deckard (Harrison Ford) pursuit and progressive execution of a group of rogue replicants (synthetic but fully feeling androids typically used as off-world slaves) that have escaped onto Earth, sympathy rests not with him but with the replicants themselves. Cursed with a three year lifespan and desperately trying to extend it by confronting their makers (the Tyrrell Corporation on Earth), their ebbing life (being hunted or simply expiring), the implicit vigour and understanding of the beauty of living is heart-wrenching. Note that the general release version is entirely different to the Director's Cut and grossly inferior. The Director's Cut does not have the misplaced bright Hollywood ending but rather an entirely different and more profound resolution. Watch it, be washed along with the gravity of the movie's theme and vista, and bear in mind: the life that burns twice as bright burns twice as fast, and Deckard dreams of unicorns.