Blade Runner (1982)

(Spoiler Review) Blade Runner 2019 is a Sci-Fi action film directed by Ridley Scott based off the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”. I had never read the novel, but I can say that the film might’ve done it justice. Ridley’s dystopian world full of synthetic humans is quite the marvel for anyone of most ages. The bleak, but intriguing clouds of smog that covers the city of Los Angeles, the neon lights and billboards advertising sexualised products, the rain that seemingly never stops pouring. It al creates a lived-in environment that the audience falls immersed into.

Ridley had a distinct focus on making the world believable, and made sure it told a story in itself. The actors that he had on hand weren’t so keen on not being the main focus of the film. Harrison Ford, playing a Blade Runner called Deckard, didn’t like it, anyway. However, Ridley made a good decision to make the world rich. Taking the focus away from the actors a little more than usual at the time meant that audiences would just lose themselves in such a big, and different future from the one they were living in.

Most people of this generation might not be able to sit through a film like this. Mainly because it’s an extreme amount of talking with only a few action scenes littered throughout. However, this is what make Blade Runner a pleasure to watch from my point of view. I’m a kid that was born in the 2000’s, and my dad was big on classics like this. I’m lucky to of been born at that time because I learned to respect the crafts of older films, and how they shaped the industry today. Needless to say, I can sit a good few hours listening to a character talk if the camera shots interest me enough. Blade Runner was however underestimated because of this, and it’s a shame that people miss the point of making such a lived-in world.

You get an almost perfect amount of intensity that rises throughout the film as well. The fact is that Deckard has to find the Replicants, and put them down, but it’s also whether they find him first. One moment, when Deckard tracks one of them down, and kills her, another one gets the jump on Deckard. He’s initially overwhelmed, but gets the better of the Replicant, taking it down as well. Then, we have the final two which have been hiding out in an abandoned apartment building with a “toy maker”. Rutger Hauer was the star of the show at this point. Putting in an amazing amount of effort for the cat and mouse game he gave Deckard. Leading up to beautiful ending of the movie where Rutger’s character conveniently expires, it is a thrilling final 20 minutes that made the story and the action blend seamlessly together.

I’ve possible watched this film five more times since I watched it as a kid, and it still finds a way to grab my interest. It’s simply impossible not fall in love with this film, in my opinion, and I sincerely hope that anybody else that picks this up agrees with that statement.