Movie of the Week: Blade Runner 2049

[jacey]

The original Blade Runner is so iconic that Blade Runner 2049 was marked on my calendar months ago, not least because Harrison Ford was reprising his role as Deckard. Ryan Gosling, plays Officer K, working for LAPD as a blade runner, and this time obviously a replicant himself. Replicants now are new models, designed to have no desire for independence and no tendency to rebellion.

Yeah, right! Slaves never want their freedom, do they?

The film's pacing is measured. There's a long build up and K lives a solitary lifestyle, accompanied only by Joi (Ana de Armas) a holographic AI with an independent personality.

When K 'retires' an old style replicant way outside of the dismal city, he discovers a long buried secret that eventually leads him to the maker of his implanted memories, and to an aged Rick Deckard, missing for thirty years.

Yes, Ford only appears in the latter section of the film, and to be fair, that's where all the interest lies. That's not to say Gosling isn't perfectly good as K. but Ford is a genuine scene stealer, a camera magnet, and finding him is all we've been waiting for. All I can say is, it was worth the wait.

We got a bittersweet ending. Is there enough of a loose end for a third movie? Maybe.