Early retirement for this one please

Rating: 3/10 (6 October 2017)

Well, let's get the obvious thing to say out of the way and say, "It's not as good as the original" (whichever version of the original you want to take that to refer to). Not even close.
So taking it on it's on terms, is it any good? It's alright is about as far as I can go. It's starts off reasonably promisingly, with Ryan Gosling retiring a replicant on a dusty farm. So we've already left the claustrophobic confines of the smoggy city already and you'd hope that would give the director lots of avenues to explore and unpick. And initially the idea of Rachel and Deckart having produced a successor, along with Joe's virtual affair offer some brief optimism. In a slightly gloomy way.
Ryan Gosling plays a good emotionless cyborg. The problem begins when he's supposed to show that he's also developing emotions, and even potentially, a soul. That's tricky and requires range. Of which he has not a lot. The music crashes as it tries to wash around you but it's all a bit bombastic and overblown. The photography is serviceable but doesn't come close to Ridley Scott's world as in the Final Cut, despite the 10 years have passed since that version. The attempts at homage just feel like cheap and shoddy imitations.
Then the story starts getting preposterous, as Joe finds two crucial characters by some form of laser guided internal radar system or something. Certainly, he manages to locate Deckart simply by finding a horse and then wandering into the desert, something which the evil Corporation hadn't managed in 30 years of trying apparently. We get a stupid diversion into an orphanage that is supposed to be Dickensian but simply serves as a giant PLOT DEVICE!!! Then an even more ludicrous fight scene in so much water I feared Kevin Costner was going to turn up. The finale was toe curlingly cringey.
About half way through, someone at the end of our row started snoring. This went on for about 20 minutes. I don't know how he managed to sleep cos this is about noise and bangs and crashes in general, no subtlety whatsoever. Oh and lots of punching and stabbing or strangling woman mainly. Joe gets stabbed and doesn't flinch cos he's hard. And when the virtual love of his life gets killed, he doesn't flinch, despite this seemingly having been built up into a key strand of the story before. There's some half-arsed "come the revolution" interlude that looks like a Duran Duran video. I'm starting to rant now aren't I. Did I tell you that Bladerunner was my favourite movie ever. This isn't....wake up, time to die.