Disappointing. For fans of director Denis Villeneuve

Rating: 4/10 (5 October 2017)

Like director Denis Villeneuve's other recent films, this is a simple and empty movie. It's pretentious and disguised as something clever and artistic. It's extremely slow and although I went to see it in the earliest show (in the morning) on the premiere day, I still had to keep myself from falling asleep. The audience was silent but when the end credits rolled I could hear the disappointment of others too.
It's extremely long (163 min) and painfully slow and nothing much happens in it. Every scene and every shot is stretched endlessly, like watching an entire movie in slow motion. Ryan Gosling, a very talented actor, unfortunately once again plays the same character which seems to have sticked to him since DRIVER - extremely slow moving, minimum dialog, lots of staring (yeah, Red Letter Media were right in their satire of the trailer). There are bits of interesting scenes sprinkled throughout the movie but they just seem random and don't create any coherent story. It's like scenes and shots made to be put in a trailer.
On the good side, there is a good production, good sets, impressive cinematography by veteran Roger Deakins, and they really tried to replicate (no pun intended) the world create in the original movie. If you watch closely, you'll even notice an ad for Pan Am, just like in the original movie. The music is also similar to Vangelis' style at times (including "Tears in Rain" at the end). I should mention that this is the second time this year that Hans Zimmer uses the Shepard tone and as much as I like Zimmer, the use of the Shepard tone here was too obvious.
I was also very impressed by Carla Juri's scene as Dr. Ana Stelline and I liked the Joi/Mariette scene.
All in all, this is a very disappointing movie with some good visuals. I kept my expectations low and I was still disappointed.
4-4.5/10 Disappointing. For fans of director Denis Villeneuve.