A visual masterpiece with a story line that is all too familiar

Rating: 8/10 (6 October 2017)

Firstly, Blade Runner 2049 is stunning to behold. The cinematography is insanely mesmerizing and leads to such intrigue that makes you just want to keep watching on. Blade Runner 2049 was a very interesting meditation of AI and technology and humanity, it does so very well. But I can't help but imagine how much better it would've been if these same ideas weren't explored in other recent works like 'Her' and 'Westworld'. To Blade runner's credit it was the original film that heavily influenced and inspired these works but I was just looking for something more and different to this highly overused genre. Nonetheless Blade Runner 2049 does it impeccably and probably is the best look and exploration into these ideas.
Ryan Gosling does amazing work in this film and his role really allowed him to perform and to express these intense emotional scenes which is one major enjoyment of this film. Ana de Armas character I felt was very interesting I towards the end leaves audiences with an ironic twist that I enjoyed a lot.
This was a very long film, almost 3 hours long and even though it feels like this lengthy epic I can't help but be slightly disappointed with the lack of action sequences. There surely was plenty of great ones but I felt that it needed a bit more of this sort of action flare to be a much more exciting watch. Now, I do understand the the story delivered was a subtle but mesmerising one but I still believe that a few climaxing fight scenes could really elevate this film especially because there is so much exposition and build up that essentially just ends up being rather flat. But, it cannot be denied that this is a great film and like the first is sure to spark controversy and discussion.
So to summarise, Blade Runner 2049 was great, there were good performances and impeccable cinematography. However in terms of storytelling it somewhat seems like we've seen very similar stories before and even though there is an unexpected twist that adds some sort of a new flare to the genre ultimately I feel that I've seen similar things. I have to say I did go in with sky high expectations so unfortunately there were slight disappointments personally.