Blade Runner 2049 Review

Re-watching a film right before a sequel is sometimes a bad decision. On the one hand it ensures you're up to speed with everything that's happened before jumping back into the franchise's world again. On the other hand it means there's more opportunity to draw comparisons and discrepancies. I don't regret re-watching Blade Runner before going to see 2049, but unfortunately for me it meant 2049's validity was put into question almost immediately when the entire premise of the original - that replicants can only live for four years - became superfluous in 2049's opening crawl, stating the Nexus 8 generation of replicants (somehow created around the time the first film look place) have no live span. And once you start to question the validity of a film's continuity the suspension of disbelief is hard to get back.

So when K's (Ryan Gosling) investigation into the bones he discovers hidden by another older model replicant indicates the robot had carried to birth a child you have to just take a breath and go along for the visually breathtaking ride and not think too hard about it. That's a shame though, because much like the original, there are some interesting ideas here, about identity, memory, morality and love but they get lost in translation. Instead of pondering these themes you're trying to uncover 2049's puzzling mystery: who is the child to the replicant and the human, and why does everyone want it so badly? It's a welcome addition to the more straight-forward narrative of the original, but again, there's too much going on to fully enjoy it - which is really quite a feat for a film you can also describe as slow-paced.

Gosling is fine, but he's outshone by the late arrival of Harrison's Ford's Deckard, and he basically suffers from the same problems Harrison had with Deckard in the first film but in reverse. Ford had to play a human that you could potentially believe was a robot, whereas Gosling must play a robot that you just might think is human. Ana de Armas and Robin Wright both perform well, but their characters are mostly unnecessary filler, particularly Armas's Joi whose hologram characters existence confuses me. Sylvia Hoeks is the standout as the beautifully menacing replicant Luv, assistant to the underused Jarrod Leto's Wallace, head of the Wallace Corporation.

If you liked the first film, it's highly likely you'll enjoy 2049 even though it's a highly more convoluted version of the original.

Prometheus Reveiw

On Earth in 2089, archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) discover a star map among several unconnected ancient cultures. They interpret this as an invitation from humanity’s forerunners, or "Engineers". Peter Weyland, the elderly CEO of Weyland Corporation, funds the creation of the scientific vessel Prometheus to follow the map to the distant moon LV-223, in an attempt to find the Engineers.

The film has a long-winded setup explaining all this, but once arriving on the foreign planet, intrigue, great visuals, and plenty of science-fiction/ horror tropes occur to keep the plot interesting. Noomi Rapace handles herself as the female heroine, particularly in the heavy actions scenes, but unfortunately something about her demeanour is slightly off-putting. Logan Marshall-Green had potential, but the way in which his character was written didn't allow for anything spectacular had he was underused. Charlize Theron is excellent as Meredith Vickers, the Weyland Industries representative with a steely-resolve, but Michael Fassbender steals the show as the creepy android David.

The films' major flaw is its ability to maintain the audiences suspension of disbelief. The inclusion of film's time-period, 2093, draws instant speculations, because of the advancement of Prometheus as a man made spaceship that can travel to a moon in a distant galaxy. Because no further information is given about the world in which Prometheus exists, questions immediately are raised that are never given answers. Is this the first time humans have travelled into space? How does a private company like Weyland Industries get a trillion dollars to send a spaceship to a distant moon? How come this particular, somewhat flawed, crew get specifically chosen for the mission? None of these questions need to be necessarily answered to improve the film, but that being said, in terms of plot, the set up is rather long, and these questions continue to nag until the action begins with the discovery of an alien corpse on LV-223.

The film also tries too hard to spend time on trying to make itself a philosophical inspiring journey by raising questions of faith and the creation of human beings. While many discussions of this kind occur within the film, none are very entertaining, and only Michael's Fassbander David provides some really thought provoking dialogue. Otherwise, these conversations often seem filler. Something for the characters to do while their not running through the dark dank caverns on LV-223 or investigating the alien species.

Furthermore, there are a lot of revelatory moments that occur on LV-223 yet strangely only one or two characters are ever present for them, and oddly enough the film rarely shows where or when the other characters find out about what has happened or what is going on on the ship, or more importantly, how they react. The film progresses as if everyone knows and is aware of what is going on, when as audiences, we have seen that they do not. This also ensures that character wise, having a crew of seventeen members was completely unnecessary, when not even main ones were entirely well-rounded and three dimensional characters. Yes, the others were used as they should have been, as alien fodder, but not even any of there deaths were particularly entertaining.

These concerns become irrelevant however once Prometheus plot gets into full swing, and while some of things that occur aren't all that innovative, there's a lot of them and there entertaining. As the film builds towards the end Alien fans will think they know how everything goes, but the last twenty minutes are an unexpected and fitting pay off for the rest of the film.

Rating: 4/5