Ryan Gosling is the Worst Batman Ever

Rating: 6/10 (15 January 2018)

I was a not the right age to be engrossed by the original Blade Runner. I had a brother who was, and I understood why. The world that Blade Runner immersed you in had never been done before on the Big Screen in such a visually stunning way. The Strange always under the fog, rain and mist filled streets, modeled after some post-Apocalypse vision of Tokyo; the vast ambient emptiness of a mostly deserted earth, left to the losers of the world, was a perfect setting for a film noir detective tale about engineered humans defying their masters and seeking both revenge for their shortened lifespans and humanity itself in this cold unforgiving world. Throw into this place an at the top of his game Harrison Ford, the stunning Sean Young and Daryl Hannah, and the over the top Rutger Hauer, having a blast as an insane Replicant who finds his humanity as he loses his life, and you created an all-time Sci-fi movie.
We can't blame some for thinking that a sequel to a classic movie like this might make sense. So as a starting point, they decide to continue the story by supposing after 30 years, the star-crossed human and replicant lovers of the first story created a child (the good old fashioned way). Now we simply set lose a new Blade Runner tasked with unraveling the mystery of what happened to Rachel and Deckhart (and their offspring) from the first story?
So, that becomes our first point of contention. Is the first story such a classic that it should have been left to stand alone? Is this plot worthy of the lofty status the first movie has been culted to? You have to decide that yourself. But to do so, you must sit through a 3 hour long movie that has a middle section that lacks the action of the first story.
What is good in this movie? The attempt to capture the first movie's ambient world is first rate. There is scene after scene meant to stun you with majestic sets, exotic lighting, a decaying society, the colorful computer capitalism of Tokyo gone wild which combine into characters mostly devoid of morality. Everyone seems to be playing an angle. The special effects are almost perfect.
What is wrong with this movie? That is a longer list. Ryan Gosling does not have the gravitas to pull off his roll. He stares vacantly and tries to say as little as possible. (This seems to be his trademark..some say he is channeling Steve McQeen). He does not display the cynical streak that Deckhart's narration in the first movie brought, and that device is not used here. Harrison Ford is a good five years too old for this role. He looks gimpy and it is laughable to see his grandpa-ass in a fist fight. The middle part of the movie, where Ryan Gosling tries to use detective work to unravel the riddle of what happened is too long and drags. There is an entire subplot regarding Gosling's girl friend that could easily be removed from this movie to cut down the time, and it would not have harmed the first story. (Ana de Amas is completely fine in her role, but 15 minutes could have been taken out of the story without her). In the end, there is a fight scene between the hero and the villain, but actually it's not the boss villain, and the movie ends without addressing the evil committed by that character. Thus the story ends, both resolved and not resolved.
So despite the lush beauty of it's carefully crafted noir world, we get a muddled story that tried to touch all the bases of the first movie's renown, but without giving us an engrossing lead, a compelling love story, or a master antagonist to do battle with. The movie is too long, and the story, outside of it's connection to resolving the question of what ever happened to Deckhart and Rachel, delivers us no one new to really care about.
If you liked the first movie, this maybe is all you need to be satisfied.