"Dying for the right cause is the most human thing we can do."

Rating: 9/10 (31 March 2018)

Watching "Blade Runner 2049" makes me want to go back and see the original film again. In some ways I thought this was the better movie, and I know I'm probably causing a rumble with that statement. But there was a lot of nuance built into the story of the long out of action Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), and it's a credit to the writers and film makers that his identity as a human or a replicant was kept ambiguous for this story. My gut tells me he's human, but then again, if Rachael (Sean Young) was a replicant, then how does that work with the concept of a live birth as the central mystery of the story? So yes, many questions, very few answers.
One thing is certain, if the movie hadn't gotten the Oscar for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, then they might as well have just hung up the award. The CGI was outstanding and some of the concepts that got play were stunning, as in the character of K's (Ryan Gosling) holographic girlfriend Joi (Ana de Armas). That's not to say there weren't some inconsistencies in the story line. For example, K's status as a new line replicant designed to obey didn't exactly match up with his actions throughout the picture, and I wasn't persuaded that an eventual discovery of a replicant offspring would be all that catastrophic as advanced by Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright). Taking things in stride, those matters didn't prove to be a big deal but they were somewhat distracting.
So over all, I thought the film was masterfully done with exceptional cinematography and dazzling effects. I'd like to special mention those hologram images of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe as being well done, but the Frank Sinatra sequence was a sure bet, as the song he was singing brought me all the way back to a 1948 picture called "Road House" with Ida Lupino and Richard Widmark. He could have been crooning about this film when he sang "Make it one for my baby, and one more for the road".