Overrated sci-fi that nevertheless has some merit

Rating: Null/10 (5 March 2006)

I have mixed feelings about Blade Runner. It has an excellent storyline and general plot: a blade runner has to track down and kill some crazy replicants intent on vengeance etc. The atmosphere of the movie is brilliant and the music is ideally suited to it. The portrayal of the future looks great: dark, ominous skies and technological advancements combining to form a bleak and desolate world. What lets the film down, however, is the acting of Harrison Ford. He just doesn't seem to have put the effort in. His lines are delivered with all the panache and elan of a stroke victim. I have never seen a lead so lazy in his acting. The general pacing of the film is also a tad too slow, at times we have to suffer Ford's interminable monologues with nothing of substance happening for minutes. The film rallies towards the end and has a few brilliant closing scenes, not least Rutger Hauer's impressive turn as the chief replicant, going mad and then coming to terms with his own mortality. Hauer is the star of the film in fact. Overall then, this is a good film, but not a great one. The story promises so much, but somehow it just doesn't deliver quite how I'd like it to. 6/10.