Blade Runner 2049

Whenever a Friday release arrives to the theaters, we as the audiences will end up doing one of two things. Watch a film. Or live an experience. Prepare to do the latter with Blade Runner 2049 as this is the first masterpiece of 2017!

As time grew and human beings took a step into the millennium, movie runtimes have become increasingly short, due to the deficiency of attention span in this world that's becoming faster and faster. Very, very rarely a team of filmmakers advent with a celluloid that has one and only one aim - to entirely submit yourself to an onscreen miracle and watch a story unfold!

Blade Runner 2049 is a motion picture we've added to the library of movie references. In other words, a textbook. It begins with a text premise used correctly to describe a world and its scenarios that are on a macro scale before clearly contrasting the protagonists and antagonists with two distinct colors. Blade Runner in red. Replicant in white.

Three individuals delivered one of their career best works for this venture! Hans Zimmer the legendary music director, Dennis Gassner the magisterial production designer and Roger Deakins the virtuoso cinematographer! These doyens joined hand-in-hand under the command of Denis Villeneuve the director, to soak you inside this Brobdingnagian universe!

Hans Zimmer's empowering score is larger than life itself! It beats you down and orchestrates you to follow the protagonist wherever he goes! A wandering flag in a wide sea like. A lost bird finding its home like. And the universe etched, engraved and inscribed, be it the settings, colors or technologies, is of scarce diamond standard! Vehicles on air, drone inspector, haze, smoke, Emanator, live computer text panel, gun, nail painting, waste discarder, wiper, billboard ads, hologram ballet dancers, office counter cubicle, archive storage, Replicant's birth through plastic tube, orphanage dumpster, Joi's gargantuan reincarnation, nature, leaves, bug, bleak tree, memory maker camera, glass cube karaoke, porcelain statues of hand plus broken heads in orange arena are immaculate! Villain Wallace's (Jared Leto) dwelling amalgamated with Japanese culture deserves a mention of its own, with the wavy neon water table reflections and lighting stimulating senses we weren't aware of prior, and this has to do with the third and most important contributor to this feature, Roger Deakins.

Roger Deakins has used his heart and soul to capture the images here for you! It still leaves us in bewilderment why this man has not won a single Oscar yet. Picture perfect cinematography! If it wasn't for this man, this picture doesn't exist. Framing, composition, lighting, focus, placement, angles, everything masterstrokes! He holds your hands and walks you through, calmly, equipoised and patiently through the wide scopes and horizons of this universe. He lingers on scene progressions to plant you in the protagonist's mindscape. You can keep looking at this picture and never get tired. The amount of details is staggering! Your eyes have not seen beauty if you've not watched Blade Runner 2049.

K (Ryan Gosling) is a newer model Blade Runner, whose job is to kill the older rebel Replicants. It is in this film you'll understand why a Replicant is assigned to undertake a merciless task as such. Because they are emotionless. They are created to obey and forced to suppress feelings. The baseline test conducted during every visit back headquarters is to ensure the absence of complicated reactions and responses only humans can possibly have. Opposite sex computer projection that can be altered with million different combinations of hairstyles and attires is to prevent current Blade Runners to attempt elope like Deckard (Harrison Ford) once did. All these are ripple effects brought by Deckard's doings in the past.

An example of premium quality visual storytelling takes place in the first few minutes during K's visit to Sapper Morton's (Dave Bautista) house. Water in the kettle starts boiling, signifying tension is brewing slowly as arguments are bouncing backward and forward between the two characters. Things are just waiting to explode. And it sure did! Pounding each other through a wall to a final smackdown is too good! After the fight is over, the kettle stops making noise, telling us that the conflict has ended and the desired outcome has been achieved. The same thing can be said about tears flowing down indicating a memory is real. Before even mentioning it at a later point of the story, you fathom it right away the initial time it appears.

Speaking of stunts, the scriptwriters knew that action sequences are functions of characters. In fact, a whole film is. Only when it is necessary, it comes forth. Car crashing on the ground at wasteland, Joi's defected hologram projection trying to wake K up before the attackers close in, Luv (Slyvia Hoeks) pressing the shot glass in Lt. Joshi's (Robin Wright) palm before assassinating her, cat and mouse chase revolving pistol shots plus trigger detonation between Deckard and K in the theater that has Elvis Presley musical going off and on are amazing executions! Notable exception would be the climactic battle between Luv and K at the movie version of beach which is astoundingly gripping! Each trying to suffocate each other beneath the water surface can take your breath off! Our hero is vulnerable, and ironically, vulnerability adds strength to a character.

K receives a call to adventure signal ever since Sapper Morton tickled the question of how does he feel about killing his own kind. Ever since this question was raised, what began as a cool character who quips around starts looking at himself and the world around him differently. He is constantly juggled on the fine rope that divides Replicants and Humans. He gets hint about lives with the fallen flower. He is discriminated for being a Skinner. As much he is pushed to explore the other side, he is also obstructed from experiencing what it is like being a human anytime he comes near to it. This beautiful balance that bounces from positive to negative is what makes this character building organic and powerful. Scenes too become meaningful.

When the story enters the true mystery of how a robot could have gotten pregnant, all hells break loose. Who is the lady? Where is this baby? And most of all, how can a robot get pregnant?! This vital information could turn the world upside down. And K is sent on a mission to destroy all evidences before anything leaks out. It is this investigation that leads him to the path of discovering himself. He has a past regarding a wooden horse which he is not sure implanted or real. He has a doubt that he may be the baby after all. It is not the script's intention to make this as the final reveal, because even K realizes this at the early stage of his investigations. What you think you know, the hero knows it too. He is terrified and anticipating, and you can feel him. As he visits memory designer Dr. Ana Stelline to uncover the truth in midst of a gorgeous memory creation process paying attention to minute nuances, he breaks down and confirms his own suspicion. He's in deep trouble as he has already narrated this memory to his boss. Now the hunter becomes the hunted. Meanwhile, on the other end, villain Wallace, disappointed with his inability to produce Replicants that can reproduce, sets out to locate the origin as K does. Same goal! Notice that the antagonist has a physical defect as well as a character flaw. Talk about character sketching.

It is at this point K decides to take action. He wants to dig deeper and know more. A slow poison thriller is born. When he realizes that he is in fact not the baby but Dr. Ana, it is interesting to see how a robot could behave like a human just by thinking that it is a human. So the question becomes, what's the distinction here? What's the difference between a Human and Replicant? A soul? Or just believing that you are living as well? If there aren't any differences, why are Replicants being used for prostitution and other activities that humans deem control of? And this is a twist we all never see coming. Even after this Self-Revelation, what does our hero do? Go back killing Replicants? No. The right thing. Remember, a character is defined by his actions. He is left alone with Joi demolished. He feels the same emotions humans feel too. And he sets out to make things right.

A revolution is rising to go against the industry Wallace has engendered. We learn that Deckard was designed to fall in love with Rachael (Sean Young). The part where they brought her back was shocking and heart-breaking a little. We are intrigued to know how can a robot be conceived. It may or may not be answered in a potential sequel, but this isn't the film's point. That's another thing about this film. It understands the point of the story so well and tracks its progress from start to finish without abandoning it for unwanted distractions that may seem cool but doesn't serve the story's point.

Homages are paid to the first feature with returning characters and story points, not for gimmicks, but to complete the offerings of this picture by moving the story forward. Deckard's earlier test on Rachael and origami-doing Gaff are such instances. No expositions are permitted here. There aren't scenes like in the original where an officer sits through a whole bunch of Nexus 8 photographs, explaining who each one is. Instead, a flash through, that's all. Each occurrences have a solid seed behind it. Because of a tracker, the rebels knew where to come for rescue. Because of overhead spotting satellite, Luv could help K destroy enemies as she is using him to complete her own search. And every character has a role to play in this mammoth labyrinth.

Visual effects are stellar! Just, stellar! The see-through graphics is pure class! Episode featuring Joi merging her body with Mariette (Mackenzie Davis) with off-syncs and slips here and there for K to finally fulfill his biological urge was outstanding piece of gem! There are a couple of clips where the vehicle looked as if cut and paste on air, but this is like a needle in a haystack. Make-up and practical effects are standing ovation worthy! Small humor here and there releases the tension gas constantly building inside us. Dialogues reveal themes, characters and story progression.

Every word known to mankind belongs to the dictionary, except for 'perfect'. It's officially owned by Blade Runner 2049. This is what the film is. Everything is measured. Everything is precise. Perfect. Perfection. Dialogues. Scenes. Imagery. Performances. Writing. Designs. Direction. Everything. Perfect. Perfection.