Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

I could say that Blade Runner 2049 was one of my most anticipated movies of 2017, that I couldn't wait for it but I'd be lying since I saw the original Blade Runner for the first time only last June and, while I loved it, I didn't care much about this one. But people seem to be so divided how this - some says it's great, some says it's awful -, I decided to give it a try myself and I think it's somewhere in between of being great and awful. 

30 years after the events of the first film, LAPD officer K (Ryan Gosling) is a Blade Runner retiring old rogue replicants. One day while on a job, K discovered a long-buried secret which leads him to track down former Blade Runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) who has been missing for decades.

This is the kind of story that manages to interlink with the original without trying to be a copy or ending up like one, I'll give it that. But that's it with me praising the story because it's pretty weak. It unfolds tremendously slowly, so slowly that I often found myself checking the time bar to see how much suffering I still had to go through. There are a couple of twists but it wasn't nothing that surprising *SPOILER* Gosling being the born replicant was so obvious, I'm not sure it was even a twist, and finding out he actually wasn't wasn't that big of a twist either since Rachael was crying when she saw the memory, said it was real and there's always a bit of the artist in each replicant *SPOILER*, there were many plot holes and the logic wasn't its greatest strength either. But it's not like Gosling's character was rushed since the villains start messing with him about an hour or so in the film. That being said, the boring story is also quite intriguing and interesting and, between a yawn and another, I managed to follow it until the very disappointing ending which had no emotional charge at all.

The characters are also quite weak. They lack characterization, they are uninteresting and have no emotional depth whatsoever. I guess the latter is normal though them being replicants. The most flawed character is easily Jared Leto's Niander Wallace. He is your typical Marvel villain and by that I mean he's weak, very weak. At least there is Sylvia Hoeks's Luv who makes for a quite menacing villain. 

Warner Bros. Pictures, Sony Pictures Releasing

Still, there's plenty to enjoy from Blade Runner 2049. Ryan Gosling, in spite of the poor character he had to work with, does a pretty good job, giving the robotic performance required by the role and making you care about his character. Not to the point that you cry for him though. Also noteworthy is Robin Wright as Lieutenant Joshi, Gosling's chief. 

Like its predecessor, this film has some deep and thought-provoking themes such that of corporate oppression and existentialism and aks some important questions. However, at times, they are all over the place.

The score which was supposed to be composed by Johann Johannsson but then handed over to Hans Zimmer as Johannsson's score, according to Villeneuve, the director, didn't resemble Vangelis's score for Blade Runner, is good.

And then there's the real star of this film, Roger Deakins's cinematography. It's not beautiful. It's beyond gorgeous. So mesmerizing it's almost impossible to take the eyes off the screen. The colours are amazing, and the settings, whether it's a desert or a futuristic city, are stunning.