Rating: 5/5
Classification: M
Year of release: 1982
Run-time: (The Final Cut) 1 hr 57 mins
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos
Genre: Sci-Fi
This review contains no spoilers
Blade Runner is based on the Philip K. Dick novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and is set in a futuristic Los Angeles 2019, an organisation called the Tyrell Corporation has advanced robot evolution and created beings that look exactly like a human known as a replicant. Replicants are now illegal on Earth, a unit of police officers known as Blade Runners are the police officers whose job it is to execute or in this movie it’s called retiring the replicants. Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a Blade Runner and is asked to find and hunt down four replicants who have stolen a ship in space and returned to Earth to find their creator Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel). One of the most influential and beloved Science-Fiction movies of all time, Blade Runner has only improved with age, not well received when it was first released in 1982 but eventually developed a cult-following when further cuts of the film were released that improved the movie, with The Final Cut being the only cut that has director Ridley Scott’s seal of approval.
My favourite aspect about this movie is probably the stunning visuals; it does a fantastic job at setting a dark and dreary atmosphere similar to movies like Taxi Driver and Seven, not only is the cinematography by Jordan Cronenweth fantastic but the set pieces and the production design is fantastic from start to finish. Like the original Star Wars trilogy and Ridley Scott’s first Alien movie, Blade Runner looks like a very realistic lived-in, used and abused universe, a world that its characters had been living in for a very long time. False expectations could ruin this movie for some people and it’s easily misunderstood, Blade Runner is not an action movie, if you watch this movie expecting Star Wars, Terminator or Total Recall you’ll be disappointed, this is a thinking person’s Sci-Fi movie that doesn’t spoon feed the audience with answers to everything but it rather leaves the audience to discover their own interpretation of what they just saw. Blade Runner excels in this category so well that audiences and fans still discuss their many different interpretations and theories 35 years after its release. The biggest question audiences will walk away with is whether Rick Deckard is a human or a replicant, if I had to come up with a straight answer I would probably say no, but this is something that I am likely to change my mind about because there are valid arguments for both sides.
As I am writing this review the year 2019 is only two years away, and while sadly we are not likely to have flying cars and Atari and Pan Am advertisements, this movie is likely to have other futuristic predictions that could potentially become true, and remains a memorable look into our potential future like Back To The Future Part 2, Total Recall and Minority Report. Blade Runner is a movie that I did not enjoy very much the first time I saw it, its pacing and lack of action may be a deal breaker for some people, however I have seen it a few times since and it has gotten better every time, it’s one of those movies where I discover something new every time I watch it. Blade Runner is a classic and highly influential neo-noir Science-Fiction movie because of its stunning visuals, a brilliant score by Vangelis, and a story with thought provoking themes that are likely to be discussed and thought about among its audiences for many years to come. If you have not seen Blade Runner it is highly recommended that you watch the final cut.