Thinner than a runner on a Blade

Rating: 8/10 (24 December 2007)

Yeah I like Blade Runner. In fact for years, it was one of my top 5 favorite films. And yeah, I still like it. There's flying cars, Rachel...And then there's all that fog.
But after all these years, i do see there are holes here and there, and most obviously, the story is thinner than paper.
Make no mistake, the cinematography, the atmosphere, the sheer cinematics of it all are still powerful. Blade Runner is an extremely charismatic film. More than anything, it is just so dang beautiful to look at.
The story on the other hand, is less pretty. Though the themes of the film are there, mostly thanks to Philip K. Dick's original source material. But so much work was spent on the look of the film, the characters are clearly an afterthought. There is such an underdeveloped set of characters and story, I'm not sure anything actually even happens in Blade Runner that is worth....well....happening. The android/Deckard undercurrent is there, but it seems thin. It feels thin. It is thin.
Now Apocalypse Now ran into similar problems, but there was so much subtext with the material and so much interaction with the characters, there still was some narrative drive. Blade Runner struggles to engage me these days.
The look of a film can be a major character just as an actor can be. But I don't think it may be a great movie because of that alone. This ain't 2001. If Blade Runner had a further developed character set, aside from Rutgar Hauer's wonderful Batty, there would be a monolithic masterwork here. Instead, we have an amazing exercise in style and nothing more.
I am a professional photographer. I know light. Its my job to do so. I can tell an extremely talented man in the way of Jordan Cronenweth shaped the signature look of Blade Runner with Ridley Scott. Those shafts of light coming from nowhere have so much visual power. So on that basis alone, thin plot and characters aside, Blade Runner is still quite good at what it is, once you settle on that.
My feelings about Blade Runner are similar as my feelings for some of the more beautiful women I have been with. I love the film when I see it, but I don't think about it all when I'm not watching it. The only thing left is a fog.