The mother (and father) of all dystopian, cyberpunk films.

Rating: 10/10 (13 June 2019)

Blade Runner is one of these movies that you will either love or hate - no middle ground. The feelings it evokes are so strong, that at times it is almost overwhelming to watch. Based on the rather well known novel by Philip K. Dick "Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?", it borrows from the futuristic, dystopian universe of the novel but, being a movie, it surpasses it and becomes something greater, something more profound, something that no movie has been able to top since. It is no coincidence that all the futuristic movies/series since then, have borrowed very heavily from Blade Runner in aesthetics, environments, music and so on. The irony is that even today, with all the CGI available, BR instead of being outdated, still shines to the point you would think it was filmed last year not almost 40 yrs ago. Even if Ridley Scott didn't make any other movie before or after BR, I would still regard him as one of the best directors ever, just for this film. The blending of the cinematography, music, acting and script give us the definitive cyberpunk movie, which is deeply philosophical in its core, and where most dystopian films try and fail to deliver, BR is successful and ominous at the same time. The soundtrack by the great Vangelis Papathanasiou is nothing short of a masterpiece- there are times that I think Vangelis might not even be a human, but an advanced alien in disguise because the music he writes is just otherwordly. Combine his music with the visuals created by Scott and his team, and you get a pretty detailed picture of what the future is very likely to look like- foggy and dirty, acidic and ultra high tech, familiar and strange at the same time. It is a world where nothing is as it seems, the humans act like replicants and the replicants like humans. The lines are blurred and upon a second viewing, you literally don't know who to root for. I will stop here- there are so many things to praise about this film that it is impossible to do so here. If you haven't watched it, please do so. No matter whether you love or hate it, it will be a once in a lifetime experience, guaranteed.