THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Blade Runner was overshadowed in 1982 due to the popularity of the respected classic, ET The Extra Terrestrial. But as time went on, generations have grown to appreciate it. When its popularity grew, some would wonder if a sequel would ever possible. I had doubts because it gave me worry of its legacy being tarnished, which puts me to relief on how wrong I was.
PLOT
The sequel dubbed 2049 takes place in the titular year where newer replicants are designed to be completely obedient thanks to industrialist Niander Wallace who acquired Tyrell Corp. The film’s lead character is a replicant named K, short for his serial number KD6-3.7. He works for the LAPD as a blade runner retiring replicants under the order of Lt. Joshi. The only companion he speaks to outside of work is his holographic AI girlfriend Joi. After retiring a rogue replicant named Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista), he finds a box buried under his farm tree containing remains of a female replicant. When bringing it to work, an autopsy confirms she died during C-section; This reveals what was thought to be impossible that replicants replicants can reproduce biologically. Fearing it could lead to a war between humans & replicants, Joshi orders K to find the child and retire it. When visiting the DNA archives of Wallace Corp, he discovers the pregnant replicant to have been one of Tyrell’s experimental designs named Rachael who went missing with her lover, former blade runner Rick Deckard. K was able to find the right archives thanks to the assist of Wallace’s enforcer Luv. After he leaves, she would tell her superior of the revelation. This would result in him ordering her to follow K, as retrieving the child and dissecting her would benefit him in expanding his interstellar colonization. As K continues his investigation, he questions Deckard’s former partner Gaff (Edward James Olmos) on where he could possibly be. He remains unsure where as he knows Deckard would’ve wanted to have leaved society. When he returns to Sapper’s farm, he finds a memory date of 6/10/21, remembering it from an implanted memory involving a wooden toy horse. When he burns the farm and returns to work, Joshi informs him Rachel’s remains were taken from forensics. This was possible thanks to Luv killing a forensics agent Coco (David Dastmalchian) to retrieve them for Wallace. Since his memory of the horse has the same date he found from the tree and there were two children born on the same date with identical DNA apart from sex chromosomes, Joi thinks he could be the child. So he travels to the Morrill Cole orphanage in San Diego and ends up finding the same horse. K would then believe to be Deckard’s child when freelance memory designer Ana Stelline (Carla Juri), who lives in a dome due to a compromised immune system 'Galatians Syndrome', confirms the memory to not be artificial. With this revelation, Joi would start calling him Joe to treat him human. When returning to work and failing a baseline test, he is marked rogue and is given only 48 hours pass it or be retired. When returning to his apartment, Joi hires a replicant prostitute named Mariette (Mackenzie Davis) to be her surrogate to have sex with him. Unaware that she’s part of a replicant freedom movement, she leaves a tracker on Joe after being used for her services. Thanks to an analysis of the horse, it has been covered with traces of tritium in the wood and one of the closest places to have such a trace is Las Vegas. It is there where he meets Deckard whose been hiding there for years. When he meets him, he admits he scrambled his child’s birth records and hasn’t seen Rachael long before the birth for the sake of the child’s protection, worried of being dissected. Luv is able to track Joe down after killing Joshi to narrow his whereabouts. She would take Deckard, destroy his Joi and leave him for dead. Thanks to Mariette’s tracker, he would be rescued from her freedom movement. Upon returning to LA, he would meet the leader Freysa (Hiam Abbass) who confirms the child was a female and Sapper was protecting her by placing her in the orphanage. Joe would realize Stelline is Deckard’s child due to how her his disease makes her biologically unusual and how she identified the memories as real, being teary as she looked into it. Knowing Deckard can lead Wallace to Stelline or the movement, Freya asks Joe to kill him. When Deckard meets Wallace, he is offered a whole new duplicate of Rachel in exchange of what he knows but he refuses. As a result, Luv transports him elsewhere to be interrogated. Joe is able to intercept her to save Deckard and kill Luv by drowning her underwater. He then stages Deckard’s death so that neither Wallace nor the movement can look for him. The film ends with Joe slowly dying from his wounds caused by Luv, after taking Deckard to see his daughter for the first time. THOUGHTS
The first film meant the world to me when I first saw it and that alone had me worried because I wanted it's legacy to remain intact. While this one wasn't a financial success either, nothing could take away what an incredible story of its own it ended up becoming when given the chance. Director Denis Villeneuve does the unthinkable in making a story that is quite grounded yet exhilarating to witness at every given opportunity. The visual effects and production design are hand in hand in creating pure captivation with every glimpse of the grim dystopia setting. And Roger Deakins' Oscar winning cinematography has us intrigued to the point we would dare to step into this world. What I think this film does better than the original is the score. Hans Zimmer & Benjamin Wallfisch collaborate to create the most majestic, transcendent score that tops Vangelis by a landslide. But overall, the film works for pushing the boundary on the theme of humanity, telling us that we make our own identity with each decision we make for ourselves. This was incredibly explored thanks to a protagonist far different from others than before. Ryan Gosling gives the most unique performance of his career because the role of K/Joe is not charismatic compared to previous characters he's played. Because he knows he's a replicant, he is aware he was created with the purpose to be obedient. That made him emotionally unbalanced and didn't know how to be comfortable with himself without being pointed at for being different. He found an escape through Joi because she was refuge from the desolation he had to put up with. Ana de Armas took my breath away in being the most gentle of figures to ever exist, something the world to cope with the world's bleakness. Even though she's not real compared to K, the emotions were indeed real. She taught him to be empathic and drove him to seek the truth. It was devastating when she gets destroyed because she was the only one to understand him more than anyone and without her, he was alone again. His conscience however chooses to grow when he finds Rachael's remains and mistook himself to be her child, he felt he can be more than a slave. The revelation of replicants being able to breed is a big deal because it proves they're just as alive as humans and don't need to be discriminated to survive. He was aware of this and felt the pressure on what to do with it. He chose to protect Deckard from the movement because he knew he had no good reason to sell them out. It was a bummer for him to die as well because he had just realized he always had a soul and never needed to be born without it. If there is an afterlife for machines, I'm sure he'll be content with the next step of his journey. Of course, there is no way we would tune in without the original blade runner himself, that is Deckard. It was a blessing for Harrison Ford to return to the role years after the release of the original film. What he brings different here is how he is more cynical than we remember him for. He is in the right keeping his distance from his child in order to keep her safe but after so long, he is too overprotective to the point he'll never consider seeing her. He bothers talking to K/Joe of his past because he obviously saw himself in him, a drifter that gains a purpose. His fear may have came true when he was taken by Wallace Corp., but he never changed what a compassionate man he was deep down when it came to refusing to sell out the movement. The most traumatizing moment of the whole film has to be the Rachael duplicate because as much as he wants to be back with the love of his life, he knows their memories are forever irreplaceable with who or whatever were to take her place. And in the end, Joe became his guardian angel when guiding him to what he never thought he could have, making memories with his daughter. However Deckard tends to spend the rest of his life with Ana, each moment will definitely be special for them both. Jared Leto definitely felt bone chilling as Wallace due to his god like masculinity he bestows due to the technology, but it was his greatest muscle that consumed my attention the most. Sylvia Hoeks made a hellacious villain out of Luv because she relished in her loyalty to her maker and became much vicious as expected to satisfy him. Even though she wasn't close enough to satisfying Wallace due to being slain by K, he knows better than anyone it would be difficult for another replicant to take her place and I believe he'll take notes on what to do with his next design. Another character that fascinated me was Joshi. As Netflix's House of Cards was reaching a conclusion, Robin Wright gives another impressive performance. She is the only one who acts with caution because she knows any decision can backfire. She knows how big of a deal it is for the discovery of replicants breeding and off of that, knows the world can't bare with another war. The referenced blackout crippled the city and this bombshell would've made things worse before it can get better. Even though K starts lying to her midway, she respects him for his determination to get things done. She knows he's programmed to obey but catches on to how it becomes natural for him to do what's right, hence choosing to die rather than surrender him to Luv in grim fashion. Without question, I enjoyed this film very much but there were still things I found questionable to the point where I still prefer the predecessor. Now I understand the story gets going when K finds Rachael's remains, but it throws me off that a flower is what it takes for him to get there. If he was sure something was off about the tree, I don't think there had to be a flower. Another thing that comes to mind I never asked before is why give replicants sex organs in the first place? It is one thing to maintain the illusion to appear as human as possible, but if no one wants them to breed before Wallace, it would almost be a counterintuitive when the whole point is to control them like slaves. K is definitely a badass in his own right for putting a good fight whenever necessary but if he can see Rachael's serial number without zooming in, there should be replicants on standby as forensic agents. That thought makes it more confusing than him missing the date carved on the tree. It was an interesting situation for Luv to watch K from afar to the point she'd shoot missiles at scavengers to protect him. The only takeaway I had from the scene was wondering why would she have so much? One shot would get the message across. And why does only cop car go after K to pick him up when he's the most efficient replicant to date? It's one thing to bet on the obedience, but the LAPD should've prepared for the worse. And if she was following him, why didn't she check up on Stelline after he believed himself to be Deckard's son? If K just happened to not have Joi on him that day, that should've been clarified. I admit I was sad when Joi got destroyed to save him, but how the hell did she turn herself on to stop Luv? The whole time, Joe would have to click the button. So if she was able to override her programming, that should've been clarified as well. Wallace is hardly here for the majority of the film and the only istake he makes is not recreating the eye color of Rachael's duplicate. He should have known that if he had her memories in the archives and Luv saw it with K. Ignore this, then you'll still love this movie for what it is. In short, Blade Runner 2049 is a great sci fi sequel that succeeds in broadening our horizons once again on the concept of humanity and reality. If you enjoyed having a thought provoking experience from the predecessor, see this now.
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