Review: Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

I fucking love Blade Runner. I first saw the original 1982 theatrical cut on VHS in the mid-1980s. That version intrigued me a lot, and haunted me, even though I didn't like the clumsy Harrison Ford voice-overs and weirdly upbeat ending. To be fair, I first came at Blade Runner with little understanding of film noir. Instead, I'd recently seen other fast-paced Ford vehicles like Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back. In contrast to these, Blade Runner felt slow and weird, but I still liked it. Its three principal characters -- Deckard, Roy, and Rachel -- stuck with me.

I happened to be living in Los Angeles in 1992 when the so-called "Director's Cut" of Blade Runner was discovered in a vault and screened at the Nuart Theater. That's when my true Blade Runner fandom began. That new version appeared just at the right time for me as a developing cinephile. I had started watching independent cinema, stuff like Do the Right Thing, Slacker, Reservoir Dogs, and sex, lies and videotape, so I was ready for a visually arty, downbeat, science-fictional neo-noir to sweep me away. Indeed, that cut of Blade Runner (and the essentially identical 2007 "Final Cut") remains one of my all-time favorite movies, even though I am made uncomfortable by the coercive nature of Deckard and Rachel's sex scene. I realize the dynamics of the scene are complicated by their both being replicants -- or maybe only Rachel being a replicant -- but it disturbs me. Nevertheless, I love Blade Runner. (I also love the Alien universe, so Ridley Scott has pulled me in twice.)

So I looked forward to seeing Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049. I went last weekend assuming I would like it and I did, very much. In my recent review of It I state that film is about 80% what I would want to see in an It movie. I mean that as high praise. I would say that Blade Runner 2049 is about 94% what I would want to see in a Blade Runner sequel.

The film often -- but not always -- touches on the mesmerizing quality that makes Ridley Scott's original so special. As with the noir-inspired original, Blade Runner 2049's main strengths are its beautifully lit visuals of grimy, lived-in settings and its overall melancholic tone.

Sure, Alex Garland's Ex Machina (2014) is a more compelling thematic follow-up to Blade Runner and is its true "spiritual sequel" ideas-wise. But Villeneuve's 2049 gets the tone and visuals dead right and introduces the reproducing replicant motif, a logical next step for the franchise that takes the story in an interesting, Pinocchio-like direction. And 2049 ends really well -- both its blade runners get superb final scenes and shots.

Although it ends with a haunting close-up of Deckard, 2049 features minimal -- just enough -- Harrison Ford. It's the new characters' show. Ryan Gosling is pitch-perfect as protagonist "K" aka Joe -- a strong silent type who is nevertheless more emotionally vulnerable than Deckard ever was (or is). Supporting cast members Sylvia Hoeks as Luv, Ana de Armas as Joi, and Robin Wright as Lieutenant Joshi (who I really thought was going to pull one more trick out of her hat before getting brutally murdered -- alas) are also especially good.

2049 does right to stay focused on Joe's present-day story, only bringing in Deckard when he becomes relevant to the mystery Joe is trying to solve. Indeed, too much emphasis on legacy characters weakens Star Wars and accounts for 2049's most awkward and least necessary scene: Niander Wallace's unsuccessful tempting of Deckard with Rachel 2.0.

There is no point to the Rachel 2.0 scene -- we know Deckard would never go for this ruse, and the use of computer generated imagery (CGI) to re-create a circa-1982 Sean Young looks, as CGI Peter Cushing in Star Wars Rogue One looks, uncanny, cheap, and (therefore) jarring.

Rachel sez: "Sorry folks, I should never have been in this sequel." 

2049's other main weak point is its almost comically underdeveloped depiction of an underground replicant revolutionary force. That scene only takes place to "explain" how Joe escapes Las Vegas, and there's a million other ways to do that -- he could just hijack some other vehicle from around Deckard's lair. Or the Wallace mercenaries could haul Joe back to L.A. along with Deckard, and Joe could escape at that point. Or he could be taken in the very same airport transport as Deckard, and would end up at the same climactic fight. The thing the rebellion leader tells Joe about his origin is something he could realize on his own -- he already suspects it before that dumb scene.

Deckard being tempted and Joe being rescued by an anonymous replicant resistance movement are stupid and unnecessary scenes. 2049 should just cut from Deckard being taken away in Vegas to "K" commandeering a new vehicle and pursuing him. No Ford / Leto meeting needed. The CGI Sean Young reveal is hackneyed in the film world and the real one.

I have been a Blade Runner fan since 1992 and was likely to want to see this sequel in any case. Yet the stellar track records of Denis Villeneuve, 2049's director, and Roger Deakins, its cinematographer, strongly contributed to my anticipation to see it. Villeneuve has made several excellent films over the past several years, including Prisoners (2013), Sicario (2015), and my favorite, his recent science-fiction film Arrival (2016). Deakins has worked with the Coen brothers since 1997, when he shot Fargo. He shot Prisoners and Sicario for Villeneuve. He also lensed the James Bond film Skyfall in 2012. He utterly rocks.

Is Blade Runner 2049 slow paced? Yes, of course it is. Like the original, 2049 is a bleak, moody, science-fiction film noir -- it is NOT an action film. There are basically two fights, two swift stabbings, and one extremely brief flying car chase. That's it -- the rest of 2049's two hour forty minute running time is people talking to each other on amazingly-lit and -designed sets. Don't expect much action, but expect a visually stunning, fully developed world of the future.

And expect me to crush people.  

UPDATE 10/28/2017: After reading my review, one of my friends noted on Facebook that she enjoyed Blade Runner 2049 too but had "some questions about Joi." Indeed, I share her concerns over the sexism of both the original Blade Runner -- the roughness of the Deckard-Rachel love scene has always disturbed me -- and its sequel. Honestly, I agree with everything Lauren Jernigan says in her penetrating article about the pervasive sexism of 2049. She writes: 

Joi has very little, if any, true agency as a character. She’s a programmed hologram that will be whatever K needs her to be, so he has his perfect fantasy woman. She is a literal product designed for the happiness of men.

Agreed. Like Jernigan, I find the sex scene with K, Joi, and her hired body double to be quite unnerving. Is this the film's way of critiquing this situation by making me feel unnerved and uncomfortable with it? Or is the film simply reinforcing the role of women as objects of desire for men? It's hard to tell. 

In defense of my Blade Runner fandom I can only say that film noir presents a strange case: it is so highly stylized and hyperbolic that I think it is possible to read the genre's abysmal treatment of women as a critique of patriarchal violence. But it is an ambivalent, ambiguous case, and there is no doubt that noirs like the Blade Runner films portray women as "only there to help move the story of men forward, rather than act as protagonists in their own right in a story very much about oppression against them," as Jernigan correctly asserts.

UPDATE 11/8/2017: I also found this piece by Joseph Aisenberg to offer an insightful interpretation of Blade Runner 2049. "Morose and morbidly meditative in tone, it gnaws around the edges of the assumptions underlying its plot mechanics, giving viewers time to think through the fakery in its themes about fakery versus authenticity."

Three Recent Good Movies

David Brent (Ricky Gervais) explains the various misfortunes that have struck his original "Foregone Conclusion" bandmates.  

I recently got around to watching David Brent: Life on the Road (2016, dir. Ricky Gervais) via Netflix streaming, and was pleasantly surprised by how truly good it is. Surely of greatest interest to those viewers who (like me) are familiar with writer/director Ricky Gervais' seminal BBC series The Office (2001-03), this feature-length sequel does not require such familiarity in order to be thoroughly enjoyed. The film, documenting David Brent's life ten years after the end of The Office, features zero cameos from the original series cast and only one brief reference -- to Pete Gibbons, what else? -- that would constitute an in-joke. Life on the Road stands on its own.

I therefore recommend Life on the Road to any viewer fond of British comedy and/or Spinal Tap-style mockumentaries. Indeed, Life on the Road is a lot like a more downbeat, dry version of Spinal Tap, as the self-involved Brent sets off on an expensive and disastrous vanity tour to attempt to flog life into his non-starter career as a rock musician. Everyone around him, including his hired bandmates and road manager, find him musically silly and interpersonally odious, and say so in their ongoing interview segments.

Meanwhile, Brent's own interviews highlight his socially important lyrics -- he is a clueless, unconsciously racist white man inexplicably fixated on native Americans and disabled folks -- and the big plans he's got for his musical career once he's signed to a record label.

David Brent convinces his long-suffering bandmate Dom (Ben Bailey Smith) to don an ethnically inappropriate costume for a gig. 

In addition to being quite funny -- some of Brent's songs and concert sequences are especially outrageous and squirmy -- Gervais here deploys a climactic device similar to that he used in his brilliant HBO series Extras: he gives Brent a chance at emotional, if not musical, redemption. His tour fails but for the first time since the character's first appearance in 2001, David Brent seems to actually learn something of value from his mistakes. A melodramatic ploy? Yes. Effective and touching? Yes.

As he has shown again and again, Gervais is a master craftsman of character-driven comedies like this, and his return to his best-known character is hilariously funny and surprisingly poignant. Life on the Road is definitely worth a watch.

Daniel Kaluuya's spot-on performance as Chris anchors Jordan Peele's 
must-see horror film Get Out. 

Get Out (2017, dir. Jordan Peele) is a fun, timely, and darkly humorous horror film that is in serious contention to be the best film of the genre released this year. It really is that good. It is also rated PG-13 which means it isn't too gory and should be accessible to thriller fans.

Get Out's most obvious referents are The Stepford Wives (1975) and John Frankenheimer's Seconds (1966), yet Peele borrows concepts from those films (as well as visual ideas from The Shining etc.) and makes them very much his own. There is a strong sense of purpose and authorial voice in Get Out, including many wonderful comedic moments that perfectly break the tension -- just long enough to give the audience a brief respite from the thrills. As I discussed with my companions after the screening, I am most eager to see what Key and Peele and Keanu alum Jordan Peele does next as a director.

[UPDATE: Jordan Peele tells Business Insider that he's got four more planned "social thrillers" in the works.]

Most interesting to me is Get Out's knowing yet subtle riff on the ending of Night of the Living Dead, a film that obviously looms large for any genre fan when watching this movie, since it is one of the few other horror films ever to feature a black protagonist.

Timely due to its racially charged plot and thematics, Get Out lands because it is a well-crafted, thrilling movie, with lots of pathos and humor deftly interwoven with its scares and thrills. As this incisive critical essay by George Shulman notes,

the gift of Get Out is that its humor about the absurdities of race, and its playfulness with Hollywood genres of horror and thriller, displays the possibility of facing - exposing - this horror [of contemporary structural racism] in ways that cross racial lines, and by evoking affects other than self-righteous reproach and guilt. But the question remains whether this movie can - what act, event, or artifact possibly could - undo the knowingness by which Obama-era whites protect themselves from their implication in the horror, the horror.

Indeed. I know I over-use this adjective, but Get Out is truly brilliant -- equal parts thrilling, funny, and thematically poignant without ever being heavy handed. An absolute must-see.

Yet like Shulman, who wonders whether or not liberal white viewers will see themselves included in the film's critique of white obliviousness to racism, I hope Get Out can inspire the right kinds of discussions and reflections in its white viewers. The film's point is that even those of us who attempt not to be complicit in structural racism, are. We should enjoy this film as horror fans but seriously grapple with its implications as potential anti-racists. As Schulman poignantly writes:

did whites in the audience imagine themselves as exceptions, as exempt from the portrait of whiteness in the movie? When we were laughing at the fabulous humor, and when we felt terror at white predation, did we divide ourselves from whiteness by a kind of self-protective knowingness? Is that division exactly how Obama era politics could proceed while leaving the deep structure of white supremacy intact?

These are the right questions to ask and think about.

Amy Adams gives a riveting central performance in Arrival. As with Daniel Kaluuya's work in Get Out, the key concept here is empathy. 

I have been a fan of Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve since Prisoners (2013), and have been eagerly anticipating my chance to finally see his latest movie, the science-fiction drama Arrival (2016). I just saw it this weekend and I was not disappointed. In fact, I would call Arrival my favorite Villeneuve film and the best science-fiction film I have seen since, say, Moon (2009).

On the basis of the first three Villeneuve films I saw -- Prisoners, Enemy and Sicario -- I would have said that the director suffers from the same "brilliant setup goes off the rails in the third act" malady as does Danny Boyle. Not to the same degree as Boyle -- seriously, look at the climactic sections of 28 Days Later and Sunshine and you'll see what I mean -- but detectable nevertheless. For example, Prisoners seems to start off as a serious meditation on the moral and emotional price of torture, then becomes a Silence of the Lambs-esque serial killer thriller in its third act. Sicario is mainly a story focused on Kate (Emily Blunt) until she basically disappears in act three and the film turns into a revenge thriller centered on a different character.

I have still enjoyed each of these movies, especially Enemy and Sicario, but I have noticed this tendency toward third-act inconsistency each time.

This problem does not exist in Arrival, Villeneuve's best-conceived and most coherent film yet. The third-act payoff is brilliantly set up from the very beginning of the film, in a "show don't tell" manner that is hook-producing and ultimately enormously satisfying. I can't give away specifics but let me just say that this film knows what its purpose is from the outset and it pays it off in an artful and emotionally resonant way.

The terrific cast doesn't hurt either. Amy Adams is especially good, and she is well supported by Forest Whitaker, Jeremy Renner, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Mark O'Brien. The alien vessels and creatures are convincing and interesting, and the sci-fi thrills will remind genre-savvy viewers of analogous situations from James Cameron's The Abyss and The Terminator.

In short, Arrival is thinking-person's sci-fi with enough militaristic thrills and interesting plot twists to satisfy any viewer who does not absolutely require lots of explosions in order to enjoy a film like this (though there is one explosion). Beyond that, the film does what great sci-fi should: suggests an emotionally truthful idea about who we humans are and can be as a species and a society. Arrival may not deliver an especially profound or unique message -- it is something we've heard before for sure -- but in these troubled and divisive times, it is a timely and appropriate idea. As a recent Oscar reviewer wrote of Moonlight's much-deserved best picture win this year, "in choosing Moonlight the Academy went for empathy over escapism." Arrival goes for empathy and escapism, and succeeds at both. An engrossing must-see.

The heptopod sez: "You humans have got to get your shit together!"

Review: Prometheus (2012)

Here's the verdict: Prometheus rocks!

Writing about Ridley Scott's 2015 film The Martian last December, I commented that

despite its coherence and high entertainment value, I did not actually like The Martian as much as I liked Prometheus, another recent sci-fi thriller by director Ridley Scott. I know many folks dislike Prometheus, finding it anywhere from mildly to exceedingly disappointing, but for me it is a key example of a noble failure: a film that is incoherent in many of its particulars but falls short of the mark because it makes a bold attempt to be something truly distinct and thought-provoking. For all its imperfections -- which mainly boil down to a few erratically motivated characters, a derivative and predictable plot, and some confusing ambiguity about how exactly the black oil works -- Prometheus really sticks with me, and its highs -- like the initial foray into the facility and the automated surgery sequence late in the film -- reach much higher than anything in the much tamer The Martian.

 

Prometheus' artificial man David (Michael Fassbender) is up to something vile.

Having just re-watched Prometheus for my fourth or fifth time, I swear the movie gets better every time I see it. Sure, there are unanswered questions and some character decisions that feel ill-motivated or at least ill-advised. But particularly given its visual, tonal, and thematic debts to 2001: A Space Odyssey (same opening shot, David's similarity to HAL, the idea of humanity making contact with a vastly superior alien species), I find its somewhat distant, "kept at arm's length" tone to suit the material rather well.

Prometheus' opening shot is quite similar to the first shot of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Here AV Club's Tasha Robinson sums up the Alien prequel's strengths: 

From a technical standpoint, Prometheus is an unqualified success. The design is gorgeous, to the point where much of that slow-paced exploration seems designed solely to let the filmmakers show off their accomplishments and their imagination. It’s the first Alien franchise movie to imply that the technology of its future can be beautiful and artistic, not merely worn and weary. And it’s the first in the franchise to work at making humans feel tiny to the point of cosmic insignificance, rather than merely physically fragile.

She concludes that "Until that frantic last act, Prometheus is essentially an abstract remake of Alien for contemplative grown-ups." Indeed, despite some minor differences Prometheus mainly copies Alien's plot, reskinning those familiar structures with awe-inducing visuals and a contemplative, even spiritual tone. As A.O. Scott writes of Prometheus' first half,

the shudders of sublimity only grow more intense as Mr. Scott elegantly lays out a series of overlapping conceits. You might also call them science-fiction clichés, but the amazing thing is that, at least for a while, they don’t feel that way. The visual scheme is sufficiently captivating, and most of the performances are subtle enough that whatever skepticism you may arrive with quickly turns into happy disorientation. The 3-D is unusually graceful — your gaze is absorbed rather than assaulted — and you are pulled into a world of lovely and disconcerting strangeness with plenty of time to puzzle over the behavior of its inhabitants.

Prometheus takes its tonal cues from Alien and, just as importantly, the aforementioned 2001. As Scott observes, in the end "Prometheus kind of spoils itself with twists and reversals that pull the movie away from its lofty, mind-blowing potential." By the third act, Prometheus sacrifices its lofty, 2001-like thematic aspirations for plot-driven, more Alien-like twists and scares.

Yet despite its grander ambitions, Prometheus falls well short of its 1979 counterpart. As Robinson writes, the prequel fails to adequately develop and motivate its non-Shaw, non-David cast members: "for much of the film, the mission rather than the people is the star, which makes it hard to connect emotionally when things fall apart for some of those people." I agree with this. Charlize Theron's Vickers works but is distant and hard to read. (Fassbender's David is also enigmatic and hard to read, but that is as it should be -- he is both an artificial man and duplicitous. Plus Fassbender is so great and is given sufficient screen time in which to fully develop such nuances. Theron gets jack -- maybe only four or five substantive scenes?)

Truthfully, all the Prometheus scientists and crew are under-developed, even Captain Janek, played by extraordinary screen presence and fine actor Idris Elba.* By comparison, the original Alien does an amazing job fleshing out each and every crew member, making their relationships and dialogue feel natural.

Plus, in Alien much of the tension springs from knowing (or not knowing) who exactly is in charge of the vessel Nostromo at any given time. Dallas is in charge until he leaves the ship, then Ripley is supposed to be in charge yet Ash overrides her when he breaks quarantine procedures to allow Kane back on board. Thus, before the alien even shows up, there is conflict, a power struggle. In Prometheus, there is verbal talk about who outranks who -- Peter Weyland's hologram says Dr. Shaw is in charge, then Vickers firmly asserts otherwise -- yet nothing concrete comes of this. Vickers never really challenges Shaw and Holloway nor forbids them from doing anything they want. The one thing she explicitly forbids -- using the surgical pod -- Shaw does anyway.

To be fair, Alien is a remarkable achievement it would be difficult for practically any film to match or replicate. Yet it is Prometheus' curse to forever be compared to its superior predecessor, for obvious reasons.

However, any movie that, like Prometheus, successfully combines the plot of Alien with the tone of 2001 is going to score major points with me, since those are two of my very favorite movies.

Many critics and Alien franchise fans have responded quite negatively to Prometheus, finding its plot ridden with holes and its characterizations flimsy. Forbes' David DiSalvo writes that "the film’s ultimate failure is that there aren’t any real characters to invest in." Ouch! I wouldn't go that far, but I probably represent a minority view.**

In any case, this guy definitely wins the "biggest dipshit in the movie" award.

DiSalvo correctly notes that director Scott is a "gifted world-builder and an excellent shooter" but adds that "the success of his films has always hinged on the quality of his screenwriters." So true! Many folks including Meredith Woerner and J.F. Sargent have penned breakdowns of what controversial, no-ending-having screenwriter Damon Lindelof specifically brought to the project. Lindelof was brought on board to revise an earlier script by Jon Spaihts, and whatever brilliance or flaws the earlier draft may have possessed, we know the final Lindelof screenplay leaves a few strands dangling -- most notably, any hint of what actually motivates the Engineers. Indeed, DiSalvo specifically faults the writing for the film's failings: "in the case of Prometheus, what’s responsible for the vacant barbarism of the aliens is merely the limited imaginations of their authors."

I agree that Prometheus' writing is inconsistent and sometimes illogical from story structure and character motivation standpoints.† For example, as this piece points out in item number five, Holloway's helmet removal moment seems out of character for a scientist, plus it lowers the stakes for the whole "deadly planet" setup. And speaking of the strangely crackpottish Holloway, his choice to get drunk mid-movie, while understandable -- he's suffered a major disappointment, he thinks all the Engineers are dead -- is nevertheless odd. As Woerner points out, in the unfilmed Spaihts screenplay Holloway "doesn't pout and turn into a giant drunk baby."

To me, however, both Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and David (Michael Fassbender) are compelling, fully developed characters, which is fortunate since they are the two main drivers of Prometheus' narrative. Shaw and David both wish to make contact with the Engineers, but for very different reasons. Shaw sees the Engineers as creator-gods and wants them to tell her about the origins and meaning of human existence. David starts the film seeking the Engineers mainly on his master's behalf, but by the end it seems that David's curiosity about and connection to the Engineer pilot, and his decision to seek the Engineer homeworld with Shaw, is wholly his own. 

David muses: "Hey, doesn't this same exact thing happen to Ash and Bishop?!"

What I'm saying is that whatever flaws Prometheus possesses, they are not outright deal-breakers. I like this movie very much. I enjoyed it the first time I saw it, and my appreciation for and enjoyment of it grows with each revisit.  

To conclude, as J.F. Sargent opines, "as much as Prometheus sucked (for some people), it’s also pretty clear that the ghost of greatness is lingering just beneath the surface." For me, that greatness is just close enough to the surface to shine through clearly and palpably. I highly recommend Prometheus.

Captain Janek sez: "Come on, guys! We non-white men have got to sacrifice ourselves for the white woman and the Aryan-looking robot!"

--
* Idris Elba should definitely be the next (post-Daniel Craig) James Bond. Please, cinema gods, let that happen.
** I have, in similar fashion, defended the notorious "flop" blockbuster John Carter (2012), stating that it "will age well, and will be regarded more highly once the hubbub over its big budget and small theatrical returns have died down." I would still call John Carter a good movie but it hasn't been a heavy re-watcher for me: I've only seen it once since I saw it in the theater. By contrast, I have returned to the (much better) Prometheus several times, with increased appreciation for its merits each time.
† UPDATE 5/20/2016: Check out Film Crit Hulk's sharp rundown of post-Spaihts screenwriter Damon Lindelof's specific contributions to what Prometheus became.