A review of Blade Runner 2049

****1/2 out of five stars

Currently in theaters

by Walter G. Tarrow

When did our nation’s sense of wonder give way to shock and awe? When did we Americans settle for easy answers instead of asking the hard questions? When did we come to prefer two, or even one, dimensional mindless cardboard celebrities over deep thinking, responsible, caring and empathetic leaders? Have we become too lazy, too complacent, too quick to settle for seemingly miraculous non-solutions to our needs and desires?

Has our need for entertainment become nothing more than fifteen second videos and scripted reality TV?  When did thoughtful challenging movie going experiences give way to mind numbing, short attention span, thrills per second toss offs?

Is this a product of a takeover of our culture and economy by Millennials?  Or is it the result of the powerful using the media to manipulate our opinions and beliefs to achieve thoughtless obedience?  Or has it always been that way?

Are these reasons why Americans are not going to see Blade Runner 2049?

Blade Runner 2049 is a major film achievement. A sequel that stands solidly on its own. The production is astonishing. Every aspect is something you’ve never seen. Or heard. The sound and the score are miraculous. The movie pulls you into the climate disaster wasteland which is our future complete with manufactured genetically engineered slaves, holographic AI lovers that are more feeling than humans, and a ruthless police force co-opted by corporate hubris, and it asks the hard questions.

What is real? What is the soul and can an artificial being have one? Are our memories, our emotions, our beliefs, to be trusted? Were they implanted by others? Do self-aggrandizing prideful executives have the right to demand subservience? Is off-world, life after this parched, desolate, empty, poisoned existence better or even possible?

Ryan Gosling is K, a Blade Runner, a policeman, who tracks down older artificial humans, replicants, who live forever and are not obedient. He himself is an obedient replicant.  A replicant hunting his own kind.  

This film is our nation’s future wasteland. Most of the time, K is flying alone in and over apparently empty airspace, seemingly unpopulated cities and irradiated pleasure centers. Emptiness is everywhere, even in the hearts and souls that remain.

However, the emptiness is at least filled with ubiquitous and pervasive holographic realities which I found most fascinating. The concept of the hologram lover Joi who loves and understands K like no other, human or replicant, is exceptionally fresh and well beyond the “simpler” ideas of androids and robots. And Dr. Stelline, the hologram memory crafter, is both heart breaking and warming.

The film takes its time getting there with its share of red herrings and existential ponderings. Careful with your ponders lest they become too ponderous. But the movie doesn’t drag. The pace picks up when Harrison Ford’s Deckard is found with the final act tight with hand to hand to gun action and a conclusion that satisfies completely.

But I still have to ask the hard question.

Why haven’t you seen Blade Runner 2049?