Disappointment for this Blade Runner fan

Rating: 4/10 (24 February 2018)

The original Blade Runner is an important film for me, so I understood that this sequel would have to do well to live up to my expectations.
I have therefore pondered a lot before arriving at my conclusions.
The film is visually impressive and just about interesting enough to hold my attention for it's very long duration. That's all the good things I can say.
Now for the bad....
The story is not that interesting and does not explore any new ideas - and let's not forget that Philip K Dick was all about the ideas.
The story hinges upon the motivations of characters that are poorly explained e.g. the ludicrously, comically evil Wallace who has taken over the replicant factory desperately needs to know how to make replicants breed because that will help humans conquer the galaxy. Really?
Meanwhile Ryan Gosling's police woman boss desperately wants all traces of such replicant breeding to be erased because if people find out the world will end. Really?
Ryan Gosling's character was wooden. I think he wore one facial expression for the whole film - and this doesn't seem to justified by the fact that he's a replicant as we've seen many of those across the 2 films with a lot more life than him. This hampered my ability to sympathise with him as the lead character.
The female character's in the film were weak or thinly written. The strongest character was Wallace's evil henchwoman - but her strength lay purely in her kick boxing abilities. No explanation was offered as to why she was so evil.
Compounding all of this was the gratuitious female nudity - a lot which was of giant holographic proportions. Why oh why? Was this film made in 2017 or 1965?
All in all a missed opportunity I think.