A long dazzling sci-fi sequel to a classic

Rating: 8/10 (8 October 2017)

This film may be one of the longest I see this year at nearly two and a half hours. Films by Denis Villeneuve move at a slow steady pace with long shots. This sequel to the 80s cult classic is gorgeous and mesmerizing as it moves around various parts of this futuristic west from trash heaps in San Diego to the red desert of an abandoned Las Vegas. Los Angeles is constantly stormy or snowing as the detection takes place in drab buildings or on dark city streets. The film begins with text informing the viewer that in the thirty years since the original film the Tyrell corporation has become bankrupt and the Wallace corporation has taken over. Officer K (Ryan Gosling) is a new version of the blade runner but also a newer model replicant. He arrives at the house of Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista), a maggot farmer. He confronts him about his identity and the two fight until K finally kills Sapper with a pistol blast to the head. Before he leaves the site, his drone notices a strange box buried beneath a tree.
K must go through tests to keep him at a baseline as they monitor the replicants more closely. Madam Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright) is K's superior officer. Other people know K is a "skinjob" and yell slurs at him or write them on his apartment door. He has a virtual woman for company, Joi (Ana de Armas). He brings home a new update that allows her to travel around but he's called back to the office before he gets to use it. The box beneath ground contained bones of a recently pregnant woman but K zooms in to find a serial number etched mysteriously on the bones. Lieutenant Joshi is disturbed by the revelation that replicants can reproduce and orders K to destroy the evidence. Tracking the serial number brings K to the Wallace corporation where he is met by the replicant Luv (Sylvia Hoeks). She identifies the number as belonging to Rachel and plays the recorder from the first film when Deckard (Harrison Ford) tested her.
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