Some good aspects, some not so good.

Rating: 4/10 (20 November 2017)

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT
Well, I was one of the original fans of Blade Runner when it was released in 1982. I went to see it many times in the cinema and it remains a personal favourite. I wondered if they would be able to make a decent sequel, and was inclined to think they couldn't. Well, at times when I was watching this, I thought they almost did achieve a fitting continuance. It was on a grand scale and the detail was impressive. Yet, little by little I began to get the feeling that this might have been done a whole lot better. Admirable and valiant, at best, but no cigar. Possibly an important film... Then, things became even cloudier. The original film has some scenes of quite intense violence, but I never felt at any time that such were anything less than necessary. Shocking, but necessary. It was part of the immediacy of the film. Here, however, I felt it was gratuitous, and worse, meaningless. The scene where Jared Lareto approaches the just-born naked replicant woman and then slits her stomach made no sense whatsoever to me. It was just to show his evil, I think. Later, the scene in which the new Rachel gets shot graphically in the head struck me as just ugly and disturbing. It was not only that but also a kind of desecration of an iconic and beautiful image. From there on in the film lost my vote. The ponderous nature of the pacing and the -it sometimes felt like- fetishistic need to reference the original film began to add up, to an experience that was less than the sum of its various parts. I didn't feel so great about the film after a while. I applaud the attempt, but I thought it would have been better to make a different film. Perhaps one a little like the original BR, that is, a classy, edgy film noir thriller, with lots of Dashiell Hammet elements thrown in. Short and snappy rather than drawn out and deep... BR was a film with a fair amount of light in with the dark, characters who smiled and you could feel their humanity, replicant or not. This film went somewhere else. Maybe that's okay. It just wasn't my cup of tea. I came out of the original film fired up with passion and inspiration. I came out of this one scratching my head, and not feeling particularly good about the whole thing. I'm sorry to say. Maybe one day I will see it again, and feel entirely positive about it. A lot of work and no doubt passion, went into this. There were many impressive aspects to the film. Maybe it has nothing to do with BR. That might be the answer. Alas, still not my cup of cha.