Let me first of all declare my enjoyment of both Blade Runner flicks. Ridley Scott's transformation of Dick's short story about androids is marvellous. Unusually, I like each available variant of it because of the different slant that they bring to the treatment of Dick's tale.
When I heard that a follow-up was planned, my initial reaction was that the legacy of Scott's triumph would be sullied. As anticipated, the plot ideas of the first movie have been amplified, and given a retrospective meaning. This has resulted in a need for the viewer to reinterpret the meanings found in the first film. I am generally not a fan of this revisionist treatment of initial, powerful productions. However, if we are willing to accept that they have done this, the writers and Director of 2049 have created a solid continuation of Dick's premise. The themes of the first film (e.g. reality versus fiction; scientific advance permitting man to act as creationist god; just because we can, does it mean we should, etc.) are cleverly interwoven into and progressed in this latest episode.
The film's visuals deliberately echo the original movie. We are asked to revel in the vistas presented to us of the Blade Runner future scape. Indeed, at times, there is a little too much of such wallowing, the plot line progressing at a snail's pace. Villeneuve’s later vision seems to be set up as the opposite of Scott’s original. BR contained slower sections between the action set-pieces in which the characters, especially that of Deckard, were allowed to breathe. In BR2049, it feels as though the very much more extended slower passages are the primary rhythm of the movie, and it is therefore easy to see why audiences have complained of it being over-long. I thought that, in seeking to respect its forerunner, Villeneuve’s effort misjudges slow-moving as contemplative and thought-provoking.
Gosling has the perfect delivery for the replicant typically devoid of but starting to confusedly wrestle with emotion. However, as in some of his other turns, his face is mostly devoid of or offers minimal reaction. This does just work for me as he is representing a new generation of replicants, designed to obey their commands. Ford's star turn in the predecessor demonstrated his ability to display his significant emotional struggle at each key moment of that story's progression.
Indeed, in this effort, Ford confirms his ability to do drama - I was especially struck at how his eyes hint at his character's multiple emotions when questioned about his past events and choices. There is surely no-one in today's cinema that can portray hunted as effectively as Harrison. Nor many who can so wonderfully deadpan deliver a cute line: K: "Is it real?" Deckard: "I don't know. Ask him." If it is Ford's emotional openness that makes the slow movements of the first film work, Gosling's more inscrutable approach reinforces the more laborious pace of this second instalment.
There are some who are asserting that Villeneuve's sequel demonstrates how the film industry has advanced in the thirty years since the first movie. I would have to beg to differ. It is NOT advancing a world in which women powerfully challenge their male counterparts (Luv's claim that "I am the best!"), as some have tried to claim for it.
2049 exemplifies the film industry's continued hypocrisy regarding the portrayal of women. Actresses, often unnecessarily, are still expected to shed their clothing, and so much more so than their male counterparts. On the one hand, 2049 is tempting us to see the women as the driving force behind the story. Yet, it still insists upon sexualising their portrayal. Please do not claim that the sex worker/household app interface scene is not intended to titillate. Nor that repeated hologram and statue female nakedness is thrust upon us because it advances the film's wider pro-female agenda. This is not simply part of depicting a world corrupted by sexual objectification. The film-makers are simultaneously knowingly pandering to the very male chauvinism that excuses female nakedness as a cinematic norm. Pro-female messages and challenge to patriarchy could be easily presented without constantly insisting actresses remove their clothes, or repeatedly presenting the female naked form. This reasoning may only fly if the males were required to disrobe as often as their female co-stars, which they don't. Even then, it’s not a great line of argument.