If Christopher Nolan decided to make a bad film on purpose this is it

Rating: 6/10 (15 October 2017)

Blade Runner 2049 is the slowest, most beautiful train wreck I've seen in years. The sound design and cinematography are just masterful with a story so pompous and boring it might have fallen out of missing pieces of Battlefield Earth.
Dennis Villeneuve's movie certainly looks and sounds the part, but it's trying to play someone else's music that was mostly an accident to begin with. This is a deliberate, austere film where nearly every single scene goes on for about 10 minutes longer than it needs to. People walk slowly ALL THE TIME for no reason. And yet at nearly three hours running length, Blade Runner 2049 manages to tell us nothing at all.
Despite the narrative lapses - and the original had similar story problems itself - this aural and visual odyssey absolutely immerses you in a world. Yet interiors are over-lit and the production design is occasionally lifeless. When the credits roll and you walk out of the theater, there's an odd feeling when you don't see giant fluorescent Kana signs and endless streams of rain. At some subconscious level, Roger Deakins and all those Katkana signs own you lock stock and barrel. The film is so visually correct and so audibly satisfying, you'd swear Christopher Nolan had a hand in it all and decided to make a terrible and goofy mystery almost as dare or a joke.
Know what you are getting yourself into when you buy a ticket to Blade Runner 2049. The movie goes from stunning feast to laughable drivel in a moments notice, time and time again - for three hours. It's best seen - perhaps ONLY seen - on IMAX and I'll probably never watch it again, but should you pay the price and take the ride? I'd say: yes.