It's a replicant of a replicant - but it shines

Rating: Null/10 (11 October 2017)

This movie affected me more than any other film I have seen in years. It took me by surprise because the trailers indicated that they had 'actioned up' the material. Not true - in fact practically every action shot in the movie is in the short trailers! Blade Runner 2049 is in no hurry; but neither is it overblown for its runtime. This is more or less the length this particular story and style needed.
I wasn't expecting Hollywood to make this admittedly unnecessary sequel into a spellbinding and dark existential musing that has far more in common with Tarkovsky than Ridley Scott's original work. This is the kind of pace and tone of 1970s Soviet cinema, overlaid with production values those films could never aspire to.
Gosling's character in Blade Runner 2049 is one of the saddest cinematic creations since the Kubrick/Spielberg outing; an artificial person so hated by real people that they randomly insult him in his place of work and spray further insults on his apartment door. His good looks just make it worse, since they emphasise his artificial nature; so he lives without friends, talking only to the fellow replicants he must kill, his cold-hearted boss and other 'non-people' on the diaspora of society, such as prostitutes.
K's only recourse in terms of companionship is a hologram girlfriend, who he treats well, and not just like the sex object she is advertised as - and who seems to genuinely fall in love with him; all analogous to an isolated and unwanted nerd reading too much into the content of porn chatrooms, longing for something deeper than they offer.
If your life was that bad, you might not want to get in touch with your emotions much either. So it's ironic (surely not intentional..?) that the same disassociation now frequently aimed at Gosling was also aimed at Ford in the 1982 movie. And that in both cases, there is a potential narrative reason for it. On the other hand, Hampton Fancher seems to have begun his script with an official list (provided to him..?) of things which must be in a Blade Runner sequel, besides a moribund lead character; such as a superficial misogyny
Blade Runner 2049 suffers badly from 'HBO syndrome', throwing in not only a ton of female nudity but a great deal of Game Of Thrones-style physical cruelty and torture.
HBO get away with it because they spread it across genders, but there's nothing here for the ladies, who instead find themselves ogled and reduced to perfect sex objects - or vehicles for extreme sadism. That's more or less a replication from the original movie, where neither Zhora's violence nor Pris's social genius stopped critics from accusing Scott of indulging in ugly urban pornographic treatment of women. So from that point of view, the sequel has an ambiguous built-in license to repeat it, I suppose; and even to augment it. But if female viewers find this unappealing, it's no surprise.
There is definitely a narrative excuse for it, in both movies, if you can buy into it: these 'dehumanised' women fit very neatly into the central concepts of the source material, even where they are not 'artificial'. Both films are about finding deep connections in a shallow world, so you have to show how shallow that world is. There's one scene in the new film where K stops to interact with a totally naked, giant female hologram; in the context of the story, it's one of the most heart-breaking scenes in the film, and only the full contrast between pornography and true love could probably really illustrate it. But anyone who doesn't see that will likely doubt the film-makers' motives, and that's not surprising.
Taking the story outside of the active urban setting into the environmental desolation beyond it is the strongest link to Tarkovsky epics such as 'Stalker' (whilst the examination of artificial life also echoes the original 'Solaris', the source material for which predates Dick's novel).
Sadly I feel the movie's box-office has been affected at least in part by the runtime; not only does it mean fewer showings, but it's such a bladder-buster that I decided to wait for home release rather than see it again in the cinema. This is a damned shame, because BR2049 is so atmospheric and engulfing a cinematic experience that it is best seen on the big screen.
I don't know how the artists involved could have resolved this, if they simply had to make a movie that long. But since Blade Runner 2049 is so polarising, they really *needed* nerds and fanboys like me to see it a second time in theatrical release. And it is polarising. Look at the reviews in this thread - no-one seems to have thought the movie was just 'ok'. I went with three people; me and one guy were really moved by it; the other two clearly hated it.
When I left the theatre for an afternoon showing of Blade Runner in 1982, I felt kind of eviscerated. I had been affected by something apparently flawed and lacking in substance; something imitative and ersatz. Yet that feeling made so much sense, considering the material. I knew I would go back and see if I could find what was missing in Blade Runner. I never found it. Not in about 50-60 viewings of the movie. But that's a lot of viewings for a film you're not sure about.
When I left Blade Runner 2049, I felt the same thing; both cheated, and extremely moved. I don't know what it means. There is some worthwhile essence in this new movie too which I know is going to bring me back to it for repeat viewings. And that's not something Hollywood has given me for a very long time.