It is not easy to do a sequel to a film like Blade Runner (1982) that has a cult-like following with fans – and that too after 35 years for a Sci-Fi film with many of the future technologies becoming common and some dreams getting more distant than in 1982 – yet Director Denis Villeneuve has produced a perfect one with Blade Runner 2049.
What was exceptional to this sequel was how faithful it has remained to the original. The story happens in the world of 2049, where the current Blade Runner called “K” (played by Ryan Gosling), a modern replicant gets dragged into not retiring replicants – which would’ve been tiring – but with solving a mystery about himself and hidden by the original blade runner “Deckard” (played by Harrison Ford in this too). The world, the people and the replicants of 2049 look the same we saw earlier, yet they feel modern as it should be for a future seen from 2017.
Blade Runner 2049
There were a lot of things to like in the film. The idea of giving memories to replicants was shown in the original, gets elaborated in this – you will appreciate the importance of this if you have watched the Chief of Programming “Bernard Lowe” character in the Westworld TV series. Joi (played by Ana de Armas), the girlfriend of “K” is virtual, like an updated version to Samantha we have seen in Her (2013). Joi loves “K” so much she arranges for a physical intimacy for him with Mariette (played by Mackenzie Davis) – for Mackenzie this character should’ve been easy after her brilliant performance in the “San Junipero” episode of Black Mirror TV Series. The radio-active, dystopian version of Las Vegas was stunning.
The virtual girlfriend of 2049
I liked Denis’ early film too, another Sci-Fi – Arrival (2016).
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