See "Blade Runner" run

Rating: 10/10 (2 December 2004)

Director Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" was one of the very first and best director's cuts to come out on the home video market. Scott re-cut, reedited, and otherwise restored the film to his original vision, which was compromised by excessive studio interference 10 years before.
Scott did away with star Harrison Ford's horrendous voice-over narration, replaced a number of shots to make up for the gaps that were the result of the narration's removal, and deletes the so-called "happy" ending. In doing so, Scott restored his original vision and the film was released in 1992, 10 years after a disastrous reception from audiences and critics.
In 1982, "Blade Runner" was released between "Alien" in 1979 and "Legend" in 1985, and Scott was on a wild streak and it seemed that only he could stop himself, since he was bringing the audience one visually dazzling and intricate masterpiece after the other.
As a matter of fact, "Blade Runner" is still one of the only sci-fi films released in the last 25 years to really have a serious impact on audiences; Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report," which is ironically another acclaimed adaptation of a work by Philip K. Dick, was another example.
"Blade Runner," adapted from Dick's acclaimed novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" is set in the 21st century, and Rick Deckard (Ford), is a "blade runner," special police detectives who have the authority to kill "replicants" (human-like androids) on the spot. Replicants have been outlawed on Earth, so they're confined to a space colony on a nearby planet, where they are forced into slave labor, and they only have four-year lifespans - so they value life more dearly than any human ever could.
A group of renegade replicants (Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, Joanna Cassidy, Brion James) hijack a space vessel and come to Earth to search for their maker, Tyrell (Joe Turkel). And so Deckard is forced to lead a private investigation to track down and eliminate the four androids before anyone figures out they're on Earth.
This is Ridley Scott's most beautiful and philosophical film to date. He really taps into the emotions of the viewer by evoking such feelings using philosophical imagery and dialogue; there isn't a single wasted frame at all in this film.
And he also uses violence to great effect in "Blade Runner." Even though none of the violence is hardly of the super-graphic type, it is nonetheless effective, especially during one particularly wrenching sequence where Deckard kills one replicant as it runs away for its dear life (you'll know the scene when it happens).
"Blade Runner" - 10/10