Blade Runner 2049

⭐ 8.5/10

I've been slowly trying to rewatch Villeneuve's movies, and I hadn't seen this one since it was in theatres. At the time it had already been announced that he would be making Dune, and I was hyped, and this movie convinced me it was going to be perfect (and it was). There is actually a lot of Dune in here, not just in the storyline but in the setting, score, and even a bunch of similar shots. A nice warmup before Zimmer and Villeneuve team up again for one of my favourite movies.  Its really cool how Villeneuve's style translates across these stories and makes him the best Sci-Fi director in the world right now.

The movie is excellent, and I love the opening scene.  It does such a good job of building a world without dialogue.  Everything is tactile and tells a story, a little like how I felt watching Looper but on a bigger scale.  Ryan Gosling is wearing the coolest coat of all time. All these details are what make a story like this pop.  There are a ton of sequels to old movies these days and I feel like this one is forgotten.  It did flop at the box office (much like the original), but it does an amazing job extending the original story with meaningful callbacks that aren't fan service slop. It even uses CGI to bring back an actress that is dead, but it doesn't matter because it looks good and is sparingly used in a way that actually matters.

The negative to this movie for me is the length.  It feels like 3 hours, and while it uses a lot of time to pan around the world and put you in the setting, I think all the scenes lingered a bit too long.  This movie can actually be summarized pretty quickly, and I think it could be told in a way where the pace is higher (like Dune). A stupid complaint, since the methodical pace is part of what makes this movie good, but that also makes it hard to rewatch or recommend. Oh, and Jared Leto is in this movie for like 2 scenes as the big bad?  The ending feels a bit incomplete setting him up and never really resolving him, but that's not the point, and they need to save content for the upcoming TV series. The final showdown feels a bit out of place, as if the studio forced them to include punching in a big showdown.

I mentioned the opening scene, I also really like the scenes with the AI girlfriend, as weird as they can be. The image I used is kind of a meme but that moment is actually pretty powerful.  So many classic sci-fi ideas going on, people who might be robots questioning what is real and what matters. It's all really effective, and I think Villeneuve's style is what makes it work. Great movie, Gosling is awesome. Tough that it was movie 2/3 on a plane, but that meant I was forced to lock in. You know the director is good if he can make a movie that looks good on those screens, and Zimmer's score was iconic for a sequel to a movie with one of the most iconic sounds. Feels unjust not to rate this higher, but that doesn't mean I don't love it.