A Pedestrian Labyrinth

Rating: 6/10 (15 October 2017)

There's no disputing 'Blade Runner 2049' looks good - the vast decaying LA megalopolis, its futuristic interiors and surrounding desert wasteland are all portrayed with beautiful cinematography - but unfortunately the narrative arc doesn't match up to the scenery.
This sequel starts off in familiar territory - just like detective Rick Deckard in the original movie, a replicant police officer called 'K' is tasked with terminating unreliable earlier models. In the film's opening sequence he's hunting down one of his targets, and during this operation K comes across evidence of the birth of a replicant child. He's soon reassigned to find this offspring, and K's new mission obliges him to do a lot of zigzagging around the dystopian landscape in his flying police cruiser. He asks awkward questions of important people, and delves into the archives of secretive institutions. This detective work seems unnecessarily opaque and long-winded, even though it's punctuated by some sporadic violence. Occasionally K stops by his cramped apartment where he carries on an unsatisfying love affair with his hologram girlfriend. The clues eventually lead to the standard overwrought cliffhanger climax, but the lasting impression - despite the film's visual impact, blockbuster budget and continuing references to the Theseus myth - is that it's all a bit underwhelming.