AFF tae the picturs oan Sunday syne tae see the latest Blade Runner 2049 film. Thair aye seems tae be a gleg audience fir sci-fi an aiblins the genre is enjoyin a wee purpie patch wi a crop o movies an TV series sic as Humans, Electric Dreams an a new Star Trek due tae shortly appear frae a “new horizon”!
The oreeginal Blade Runner is ane o ma verra favourite films; its warld weary forjeskit an forfochen detective, played bi Harrison Ford, an its cast o replicants led bi an unforgettable Rutger Hauer, combined wi Ridley Scott’s direction an Vangelis’s music score adds up tae cinematic perfection in ma een. Sae expectations wir heich fir the new film; an ah wisnae stammygastert!
As a younker at the saicendary schuil ah slokit ma drouthfu imagination bi readin aa the sci-fi material ah cuid get ma haunds oan frae the Cumnock Academy library. Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury (an whan wull we get a new version o The Illustrated Man? a film that wi new CGI is juist screichin tae be made!) Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K Dick, John Wyndham an a wheen ithers. Ah read that much that bi the time ah wis twenty ah pretty much abandoned sci-fi, bit it aye-an-oan bides a guilty pleasuir fir me at the cinema. A couple o month syne the Wilson family traipsed tae the GFT tae see Fritz Lang’s 1927 seelent maisterpiece Metropolis – an e’en the day it haes loast nane o its pouer tae dumfouner!
We opted fir the full 3D expairience – which at £27 fir the twa o us wisnae chaip! The flicks arenae a ten boab option these days! An settled doun tae enjoy the schaw!
Ah thocht Ryan Gosling in the main role wis byordnar guid. Nae juist a wham-bam actioner but brocht subtlety, ingyne an emotion tae a role that needit some barin o the soul; the norrie o a soul bein ane o the themes explored in the new film.
Ah’m no waantin tae gie ony spilers here, but gin ye huvnae seen the film ye’d be best tae wait until ye hud afore readin this mibbes. The hale tale is daurk, dowie an dystopian in its bleak presentation. Ane o the kinches wi modren sci-fi films (I, Robot; Ex Machina; Maze Runner, etc…) is that they are aa gey dour in the warlds that they pent. Blade Runner 2049 is geyan especial dour in this respeck; unremitting in its gloominess. It is a nichtmarish warld. It wid mibbes be guid tae see a sci-fi movie that presaints a mair perjink optimistic future fir the human race – but mibbes thon disnae pit bahoochies oan cinema sates the wey yirdfast tragedy dis!? Thair is alsae a Tarkovsy-like hauntin souch tae the ongauns i the plot; beautiful in its cinematography. Aiblins an Oscar contender in that respeck?
Blade Runner 2049 imagines the oreeginal characters an whit becam o thaim an haes cam up wi an ingenious an weel thocht oot an faur-i-the-buik script. Heroes are heroic; an baddies are as bad as they come!
Clevir script scrievers likesay; its fun tae play “spot the leeterary link/allusion”, buiks an fairy tales, o whilk there are a wheen. Ane wee reveal wid be Joe K’s (aye, that yin’s obvious is it no!?) ringtone, that plays Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf? Ah hae ma ain ideas anent this – but nae dout ye can form yer ain? An thair ither musical motifs in the film that lend it a rael graund opera feel. At key pynts the score signposts ye back tae the oreeginal Blade Runner. Muckle neon signs letter the cityscapes; oan an ironic note (an we wir at Kilmarnock Odeon) they kythed a skyscraper wi a big yella Diageo logo! Ah thocht the Kilie audience micht hae booed oot lood at that yin!?
A hauntle o Philip K Dick’s plotlines, frae the film’s 1968 source story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, dinnae mak the cut in either o the Blade Runner films. The “false memory” dream sequence stuff is weel handled an presaintit, but ah wid airgue that a key theme sic as “Mercerism” shuidnae hae bin left oot; the Sisyphean ettle o this bein aiblins a strang metaphor in the film – a rug an rive that cannae be won!? Or mibbes thair’s thaim that wid say “Mercerism” is praisent in an oblique, eildritch, deep-drauchtit cinematic type o wey!? Discuss deir reader?
The ecology threipers wull pynt at this film an threip (as is their wey!) “We telt ye! We telt ye!” as the warld is presainted yet agane as bein stoup an roup ruint environmentally. This o coorse gies its director Denis Villeneuve carte blanche tae portray LA as a Montreal like wunter wunnerlaund; which in its wey is rael cinematic magic. Mind, it’s funny hou despite the paradoxical promise o science an technology, the future warld view o film directors is aye gless hauf tuim, an nevir hauf fou?
Blade Runner 2049 is a magneeficent film. Sweepin in its veesion an a rael homage tae the 1982 maisterpiece. Is the the 2049 rebuit a maisterpiece? Time wull tell! But it’s no faur aff it! A sairious film fir sairious cinema goers. Ye’ll no be disappyntit.
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