Growing up as a young fan of sci-fi (and enjoying Harrison Ford’s iconic roles/wanting to be Indiana Jones), I definitely knew about “Blade Runner”. Still, my parents were actually pretty strict about moving ratings and by the time I could see a Rated “R” film, I had kind of moved on. But when “Blade Runner 2049” was released in 2017, I was reminded that it was time to visit the original. I finally got around to it!
Coincidentally, my two year delay was apropos as “Blade Runner” takes place in 2019 Los Angeles (in a setting somehow far more dreary than the actual thing). The film follows Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard, a special kind of cop/bounty hunter who tracks down and “retires” (a.k.a. kills) replicants (androids that are not permitted 'on planet'). Deckard gets dragged back into the traumatic line of work when four replicants steal a shuttle to Earth. We see Deckard investigate and eventually off each of the replicants until faced with Roy Batty, the group’s leader, in a rainy and terrifying final showdown.
This movie was jam packed with style. From the perspective of world-building, the film is nearly unmatched for its era. The cluttered, filthy, asian-hybrid ‘future’ Los Angeles was dreary and trashed like a somehow-worse version of Hill Valley 2015. The “retrofitted” art deco Los Angeles greatly suited this futuristic film noir and the production design has clearly been influential, reminiscent of later films like “The Fifth Element” and “Minority Report”. And the casting was spot on, with a chilling performance by the recently passed Rutger Hauer and Harrson Ford in would could be his most gloomy, Harrison Ford-esque role yet.
After all this wait, this film didn’t entirely land for me. I suspect it was, in part, because it was a film noir—I generally can’t stand film noir. I think the film steeps in traditional sci-fi themes around genetic engineering, the nature of humanity, and the failures/ethical quandaries of capitalism but never really goes anywhere with this framework. The job is hard, Deckard is good at it, what he does troubles him, and everything sucks. It’s a typical “there are no winners in a future with androids” story that has been told more interestingly elsewhere. I’m sure I’ll get around to “2049” eventually—but for now, I’d rather watch Terminator 2.