Visionary - but voiceover spoils audience involvement

Rating: Null/10 (17 October 2001)

Ridley Scott's horrific future-vision of Alien was a landmark in cinema. Blade Runner keeps his trademark bleak city vision and opens it up with questions of existence in a detective thriller.
The visuals and the score in the film are excellent and for me make the whole thing work. Ford and Young are good in their roles, but Rutger Haur is excellent as the lead android making this one of his best performances - who doesn't know his final speech almost verbatim by now?! The film's weakness is that it is difficult to go deeper into the story beyond the detective story because Ford's voiceover points us in a clear direction that stops you reading it yourself.
The film is flawed due to the voiceover treating us like fools and not allowing us to read the film ourselves. Ford and Young's wooden acting styles fit in fine with the film, but in this version the bleak vision of the future is the true star. Skip this and watch the Director's Cut instead, it frees you up to follow the story yourself, and additional scenes tell you what the film is really about.