Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

  I saw this movie two weeks ago and I still don't know if I liked it or not.  This is probably going to ruin my nerd cred with some of you, but I never really liked the original Blade Runner.  I thought it was decent but seriously overhyped.  And I'm leaning the same direction for the sequel.

K (Ryan Gosling) is a blade runner, a replicant tasked with running down the rebellious members of his own kind.  His first inkling that something has gone horribly wrong is when he is tasked to retire Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista), who has been the caretaker of an enormous secret, one which threatens the entire society:  that a replicant could give birth to living offspring.  K is commanded to track down and destroy the child before this becomes public knowledge.  But industrialist and replicant manufacturer Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) has his own plans for the miracle child.  As K finds himself drawn further into the mystery, all roads seem to lead back to the original officer, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford).

It's a beautiful film, really.  Denis Villeneuve and Roger Deakins see to that.  The problem I have is the story.  What is this movie adding to the conversation Ridley Scott began in 1982?  That's not rhetorical.  I legit don't know.  It seems like mostly an excuse to retread familiar ground with better special effects.  I've heard some people say it gives the ending that the original should have had, but I think that's crap.  There was nothing wrong with the ending.  It was purposefully open-ended in order to keep you guessing.  The question was never "is Deckard a replicant?"  It was "how do we define humanity?"  This film is so sympathetic to K and the other replicants that it seems like a moot point.

I don't think anyone would ever be sorry they watched it.  Like I said, Villeneuve and Deakins are master craftsmen.  I'm just sorry that it couldn't have pushed the dialogue a little further.