Overrated...

Rating: 5/10 (7 August 2004)

Sorry, but this film is way overrated. Top 100 of all-time? I don't think so. Here's why:
SPOILERS AHEAD
1) Incredibly slow pacing...for an action/adventure type film, there is just way too much down time. I can only take so many minutes of watching a man (Deckard, played by Harrison Ford) drink himself into oblivion while staring at photographs. 2) Special effects that really date themselves (the original Star Wars came out several years before this and looks much better in today's light than this film). 3) I didn't fear the Replicants. I actually felt more sympathy for them than for alcoholic Deckard. 4) Poor set up with Deckard being convinced to come back to kill 4 of the replicants. Rather than a clear motivation, we're left to trust that Ford has no choice...simply because if he's not a cop he's a small (i.e. regular) person. Who cares! 5) I can't tell if the dialogue was really poor, or if the acting (especially Ford's) was sub-par. I think it might be both. 6) If the Replicants are due to expire any day now (since they have a 4-year lifespan), then why not sit back and just wait for them to die? The climatic scene with Deckard battling Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), ends up with Batty actually saving Deckard from death. Batty then sits down and expires. THE END! That sound you just heard was all of the tension/suspense deflating from the balloon, rather than exploding with a loud pop! Lame. 7) As for all of the ridiculous suggestions that Deckard is in fact a replicant, why is it then that he gets tossed around like a rag doll whenever he's battling a replicant? Doesn't make sense, although this would have been a great twist to the movie if the Writer/Director had intended it rather than leaving it to the rabid fans to come up with the idea.
Sorry to be a wet blanket on what is considered by way too many people to be one of the best films ever made...but this film has far too many holes in it and slow pacing to qualify as a good film, let alone one of the best ever made. I give this a 5/10, but it only gets those 5 points because the film was definitely ahead of its time back in 1982. It was just poorly executed. I'd love to see a re-make of this with today's technology, but with a new script.
ebhp