Fan fiction with a giant budget

Rating: 3/10 (18 March 2018)

There are many flaws with 2049, but none bigger than its fan fiction level plotting. What if Deckard and Rachel somehow had open ended lifespans and they had a baby! It's amateur hour stuff. It treads all over the world created in the masterpiece original. You'd have thought Tyrell might have at least dropped a hint that as well as planting experimental memories in Rachel, he also gave her the ability to have children.
The cast is bored throughout. Gosling is flat as ever and mumbles every line. Ford does his usual grumpy old man act. Robin Wright is good for the brief handful of scenes she's in. Sylvia Hoeks is serviceable as a female Terminator. Ana De Armas is one note and her thick accent makes her dialogue difficult to understand. Jared Leto appears to be stoned throughout and is barely audible as his James Bond comedy villain.
Visually 2049 has its moments, but they're sandwiched inbetween a lot of daytime sequences which are flat, grey, and foggy. Even the nighttime sequences lack the detail and scale of the original, and the interiors frankly look like they belong in 2001 rather than Blade Runner. The original is a much, much better looking movie.
The score is a stand out as it may well be the worst score in motion picture history. Hans Zimmer has taken his war on melody to new levels with this cacophonous wall of random noise. It's painful stuff. He steals a classic Vangelis melody at the end, which only compounds his failure. The day Zimmer retires from film scoring will be a happy day.
The film is not entirely without merit. It's nice to see spinners again and some of the nighttime city shots are nice, but that's about it. The original remains a perfect movie. This is anything but. And why does Deckard's daughter have a French accent? Just one of the many baffling decisions in this cinematic mess.