Ignore the Naysayers...

Rating: 9/10 (27 December 2017)

OK, so let's start here by declaring that I am not a paid critic, nor am I paid to falsely rate this movie highly just to inflate its IMDB score either, but I do have great interest in cinema overall and take all films I enjoy seriously.
With that in mind, I am sure that the director of Blade Runner 2049 took his job very seriously also when he made this film and it shows. The sound and visuals are stunning, the acting is excellent all around, and I enjoyed the music that helps paint a bleak future world. The story is simple but develops over the course of the film. It, like the replicants themselves, implies a much wider impact and implication on the BR world than what is presented in the film, and it actually builds on the original rather than just being cheap fan service like so many other recent prequel-sequels.
I enjoyed watching everyone onscreen as well and was never bored at all, though I was surprised by how some of the ladies in the film had very little scenes overall. People playing as replicants had that same sort of slightly off kilter personas as shown in the original movie, and Jared Leto's performance as the new maker of the replicants was nicely cold, calculated, and very business like.
In terms of the story, it was nice to see something that had a sense of mystery to it and didn't quite go in the direction I was anticipating. The trailers thankfully do not give anything away in this regard, and I was never bored at all.
And that brings to mind the criticisms about the length of this movie: it takes its time to develop itself, and it was nice to see a film that doesn't rush thru the story with crappy editing and overdone handheld shaky cams in the process. I very much enjoyed the fact that we get to see a Blade Runner actually do some detective work in detail - X doesn't mark the spot, and Officer K has to do some exploring (which he is openly criticized for by his superior) but that means we get to see his highs and lows of doing the job. As a result, Ryan Gosling's Officer K gets to develop as a character and he plays his role very well in the process.
In the end, I don't understand the hatred for this movie. I remember people going bonkers when the first teaser trailer came out because Harrison Ford was wearing a t-shirt (what, they don't have underwear in the future?) and already putting down Ryan Gosling, all because they were seeing scenes totally out of order and out of story context. That mentality seems very laughable to me and also is the kind of self-indulgent hatred and false sense of superiority that makes social media be the evil tool that it really has become.
Does anyone really think that any story in the BR universe will be better than the original? No, it's impossible, but BR 2049 is about as good of a follow up as one could hope for. It's not for everyone, and it's probably not even for ever BR fan, but it worked for me and I enjoyed it immensely.
And I will be watching it again very soon...