Dennis Villeneuve doesn't believe in the cutting room floor

Rating: 10/10 (7 October 2017)

This is a decent film, with a masterpiece dying to get out. Much like the original, it is a truly breathtaking visual experience. Also, there's plenty of scenes chock full of tense moments with excellent acting and dialogue. Not only, the story cleverly avoids many pitfalls both as a sequel and as genre film. Every problem with this film can be traced to it's excruciatingly bloated runtime. Scenes go on, sometimes for an almost comical length. Which scenes? Every scene. I'm not exaggerating when I say literally every moment is stretched beyond capacity. The original is a slow film as well, but uses it to its advantage to build its incredibly impressive world and doesn't overstay it's welcome. It's great to take in the visuals, but with an hour left, I found my mind wandering away from the mostly compelling story. A more minor problem is a holographic character, who Ryan Gosling's character becomes romantically involved with. She's nearly pointless, other than to hear Gosling's perspective on the film's events, yet we're subjected to large chunks of the movie dedicated to it. But once again, I must wonder if this subplot would have worked better if it weren't so long. The story is serviceable and its execution is near-superb. It's too bad Dennis Villeneuve doesn't believe in leaving anything to the imagination, or we truly might have had a masterpiece on our hands.