Over long and overwrought

Rating: 4/10 (18 October 2017)

I'm old enough to remember when the original Blade Runner came out in theatrical release. It wasn't a box office disaster exactly. But it sure wasn't the hit they seemed to be hoping for. Part of the problem was that most people, myself included, just didn't get the whole film noir science fiction thing the first time that we saw it. Shortly after its release, Ridley Scott, the film's director was quoted as saying that the film that was released was not the film that he had intended. That led to a Director's Cut re-release, one of far too many Director's Cut releases that would follow. It wasn't much better than the original. It was just longer. But the movie got better with age and with further viewing. The original Blade Runner might in fact be the last great movie that Ridley Scott made. He went from the man who publicly bucked the system to being the ultimate minion of the system. Scott's movies have become known for their loudness, explosions and car crashes, as full on sacrifices of anything meaningful or deep to the great god of box office blockbusters. So my first question, when a good friend suggested Blade Runner 2049 to top off our mutual birthdays was if Ridley Scott had directed it. Since he hadn't, and since I did love the original, eventually, and since the trailers and interviews with Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling made it seem like an interesting movie, we headed out to see it. We went whole hog too. 3D and Whatever They Call the Thing with the Chairs that Shake and Shift. (Quick Note: If you happen to have Asperger's, as I do, 3D and Moving Chairs is a horrible idea. It was all I could do to stay in my seat at first and not run screaming from the theatre... I hung in there and did even enjoy it at points, but someone with more severe issues might not be able to handle this at all... Guess I should have thought that one through...) Ridley Scott didn't direct Blade Runner 2049, but he did produce it. And therein may have lied the problem. A man who complained about producers cutting his film down is going to have a hard time deciding to cut another director's work, particularly when the work bears the same name. Blade Runner 2049, with a minimum of 30 minutes, probably closer to 45, cut from it might have been a very good movie. The acting is superb in every single role. The story has many interesting ideas flowing through it. And there's some fine cinematography. But you just can't maintain the kind of tension that this film is trying to create for that long a time. And the so called mystery that the film seems to revolve around just doesn't seem to matter when you spend that much time taking us through a overly long overwrought convoluted investigation. We go from tense to bored and then to a little annoyed that the film isn't being wrapped up. A few jokes, a few lighter scenes might have saved the film too. We can see how much fun Gosling and Ford can have with each other in interviews. Why don't we see that on the screen? Blade Runner 2049 tries hard to recreate that film noir darkness of the original, but it just never quite gets there, and it takes way too long to not quite get there. It doesn't suck. There are many very good things about Blade Runner 2049. It just goes on too long and then doesn't quite deliver whatever it is that we've been waiting too long to see. I can't say that I'd recommend the movie to anyone. But I also can't say that no one should watch this film. If you don't mind overly long movies. If you don't mind convoluted plots that don't quite pay off. And if your ass doesn't get numb from sitting in a seat too long, even a seat that moves, maybe you'll like Blade Runner 2049. Or maybe somebody will finally do a Director's Cut where they cut more from the film than was originally released... Yeah. That's likely to happen.