Blade Runner

Cast, Etc.
Dir. Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, Brion James, Edward James Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, William Sanderson, Joanna Cassidy, score by Vangelis, rated R, 1982

Synopsis
A cop gets tasked with hunting down dangerous robots.

Review
Well, I've seen the original version of this film and now director Ridley Scott's "Final Cut" (apparently he's happy with it now) of this adaptation of Philip K. Dick's story "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and not much has changed since my initial viewing. In fact, I think I like it even less, if that's possible. Coming in at number 97 on AFI's 10th Anniversary List and holding the number 74 spot on the 100 Thrills list (I don't know why), Blade Runner tells the story of Rick Deckard (Ford) in the year 2019, who gets re-hired by the L.A. police to serve as a Blade Runner, a special type of cop used to hunt down replicants, extremely-advanced robots that can pass as human, after four of them escape to Earth (where they're illegal). Deckard doesn't want to do this, but he has no choice (apparently). As he trails Roy Batty (Hauer) and gang, he meets a woman named Rachel (Young) who is a replicant, but hasn't been told. Bit by bit, Deckard gets closer to the replicants while they try to find a "cure" for the built-in failsafe of a four-year lifespan. It seems that after four years, replicants were able to develop their own emotional responses to things, making them that much closer to human beings and almost impossible to spot. What follows is a slow, mind-numbingly boring film that, while creating a wonderfully imaginative and grand futuristic vision, fails to create any sense of excitement, purpose, or plot (supposed to be a futuristic film noir, my wife called is "film snore"). Director Ridley Scott can make good, exciting movies (Alien, Gladiator), so what happened here? Apparently he was interested in "creating beauty with each shot." Well, that's nice. You missed the part about creating a plot and an interesting movie. It may very well be an exercise in existentialism, but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near a good movie. Harrison Ford is actually pretty good (again) as Deckard, a man who finds himself thrown back into a life he apparently does not want and forced to hunt down what appear to be human beings. Rutger Hauer is very good as Roy Batty, the leader of the advanced replicants searching for a cure to their limited lifespans, but even the dangerous bad guy isn't all that interesting. Sean Young is rather lifeless (pun intended) as Rachel, but beause of that, I don't care at all about her character. Scott's future vision is bleak, despairing, and depressing; why it is that so many sci-fi movies paint a picture of the future that is a bad place is beyond me. It shows just how revolutionary and unique a vision Gene Roddenberry had for Star Trek. There is no hope in the Blade Runner future, so why should we care? Even the philosophical ideas concerning what it means to be human are barely dealt with, something sci-fi should be great at doing. The pace of the movie is maddeningly slow; we don't need the same exact establishing shot of the same building each time we see it, nor do we always need to see the same electronic advertisements. Did Scott copy shots to pad out the movie's runtime? And apparently it's always raining and nighttime in the future. Great. The title is curious; aside from being what Deckard is called in his profession, there is no link at all to the title. We're not even given an idea as to why they're called Blade Runners (upon viewing some background material, it's not even the title of the original story, but borrowed from some totally unrelated book). It's no wonder why this movie failed in its initial release and I disagree with those who say it has continued to be relevant and inspiring. What it represents is two hours of my life I'll never get back.

Highlights
the look and feel

Rating
I give this film a parched rating; it's bland and worthless as a movie experience. As a sci-fi film it's very bad. The villain of Roy Batty could have been so much more. The score by Vangelis is as boring and insipid as the film.