Elaborate but Inadequate

Rating: 8/10 (26 December 2007)

Other commentators have already suggested that the events and ideas contained in the story were insufficient to fill the length of the movie, and I'm inclined to agree. There were times when in did appear to drag.
The interpretation of the future was also a bit cackhanded. Right from the beginning we see those huge out-wellings of flame over the city. What are they supposed to be? Surely someone would have capitalised upon such wanton waste and stored the gas for heating. It is simply the director's triumph of imagery over logic. Already there is great concern about atmospheric pollution, global warming and so forth, yet our skies are nowhere near as gloomy as those depicted in the movie. Perhaps we lose the battle. But even that hardly explains why the interiors of buildings were so dimly lit. How could anyone see to work, let alone clean-up? Also, as these replicants were effectively regarded as machines, and highly dangerous ones at that, it is certain that they would have been fitted with some kind of tracking device like SatNav. Look how widespread that has become already. Furthermore, I rather think that a more effective method of dealing with them than just a modified handgun would have been devised. And why so little CCTV? Wouldn't there have been cameras in the lifts of the Tyrell Building? And what about security guards, intruder alarms etc. How could a replicant get to see the man himself simply by accompanying an employee? Try that in any major corporation today. Day or night, it just won't happen.
This movie is a paradox. The very technology that creates these wonderful puppets would be spread throughout the world, checking-up on them and everyone else. '1984' was a much more accurate piece of science fiction. In Britain at least, it is almost fully realised. Actually what we have here is science fantasy, not fiction.
As to sending one man with one side-arm to hunt for half a dozen dangerous opponents? No; that doesn't make any kind of sense at all. Especially when those opponents are strong enough to punch through walls and quick enough to dodge bullets.
But if you can get your head around the one-sided and anomalous interpretation of technological development, and you can avoid chafing at the slow, slow pace of a fairly straightforward story, it's quite a mesmerising audio-visual experience that will linger in your memory. Commentators who see multiple layers of wisdom after viewing it dozens of times need to get a life; they remind me of those people who used to hear secret messages in old vinyl records when they were played backwards. If there's any subliminal instruction here it probably runs 'believe this movie is more than the sum of its parts'. What better testimony to the confusion of its message than that the director himself has so often re-written it?
It is extremely elaborate in presentation, but a good artist uses your imagination rather than his own. He just scatters random and abstract clues and lets you deduce their meaning. Imagery so lends itself to interpretation in fertile (and gullible) minds. Just check-out the power of religion.
Enjoy it, by all means. Just don't think too hard.