A quick note…
I’m back! This is the first review I’ve written since beginning my “Film as Literature” class at my high school! So consider this the beginning of a newer and much more sophisticated writing style in regard to my film reviews. Enjoy, and as always thanks for reading.
Now a cult film and a science fiction classic, Blade Runner was a flop back in 1982–making approximately only $15 million in profit at the box office. Blade Runner takes place in a dirty and dark, yet futuristic Los Angeles in November of 2019. Harrison Ford plays Deckard, a “Blade Runner” who hunts down replicants–robots made by the Tyrell Corporation for slave labor that live on the “off-world” colonies. When tasked to take down four Nexus 6 model replicants who escaped from the colonies and are now on earth seeking answers from their creators, Deckard has to carry out his duty despite falling in love with a replicant that he isn’t hunting. That replicant is Rachael (Sean Young), a newer model who he puts through the Voight-Kampff test when he meets her to see if he can prove to Tyrell (the creator of the replicants) that the test truly does work in revealing replicants. When he returns home, Rachael follows him, enters his home, and then refutes the claim that she’s a replicant. She does this only to be proven wrong when Deckard explains that the “memories” she has were implanted in her brain and aren’t her own. After this scene, Rachael disappears from the Tyrell building. Deckard falls for Rachael, lets her disappear, then returns his attention back to hunting the other four replicants. The plot then makes Deckard’s mission the focal point, with occasional switches to the replicants’ journey on earth through the violent, light deprived, and mid monsoon season Los Angeles streets. Blade Runner garners most of its folk love through its stunning visuals–Ridley Scott’s signature talent to create worlds (past and present) completely from scratch (Alien (1979), The Martian (2015)).
The Pros
In a film review back in 1982, critic Roger Ebert said “He [Ridley Scott] seems more concerned with creating his film worlds than populating them with plausible characters, and that’s the trouble this time [with Blade Runner].” I recognize that it’s easy to side with critics when evaluating films and that I said I’d be the “Joe Schmo’s” review in my website’s bio, but I can’t help but wholeheartedly agree and disagree with Ebert. Since this is “The Pros,” I’ll start with what I agree with. Lawrence G. Paull and Peter Hampton, the production designers for Blade Runner, in tandem with the cinematography design of Ridley Scott and Jordan Cronenweth created a futuristic Los Angeles that simulated the effects of the worries from the 1980s. Without the title card of “Los Angeles, November 2019,” it would be almost impossible to guess what city Blade Runner is set in. The excessive shots of the international district, the extreme long shots of Coca-Cola advertisements draped upon massive skyscrapers, and the lack of Americana leaves an impression of Tokyo in America. Ridley Scott does this on purpose. He’s creating an America influenced by decades of what was assumed to be Japan dominating the automotive and tech industries. For this reason, it’s so fascinating (especially when applying hindsight) to see what Scott was doing to a world with a conventional science fiction plot where robots contest humans for control. Reserved for my film class would be an analysis essay where I’d argue that Scott’s near dystopian future shown in Blade Runner may be a time capsule argument of what he believed America would see in the twenty first century. But for now, it’s all credit to creating such a cool world.
Related to Scott’s design of the world where Blade Runner takes place is how cool (or uncool depending on your germ aversion levels) the grime and lighting is in the film’s last sequence. The low-key lighting and low exposure of the shots cast a dark perspective (literally and figuratively) for the viewer to watch the movie through. When watching the film, ask yourself how many times you’d consider it to be bright. The only times when there is significant light is when Rachel is at Deckard’s apartment. For the last sequence, there is so little light that when combined with the grime, we are tasked with having to imagine a Los Angeles and a world for that matter, where pollution, industrialization, and climate change dominates. Whether that’s a progressive argument from Scott is still up for debate, but the lighting and world design from Scott is literally and figuratively out of this world (at least for now…).
The Cons
Reverting back to Roger Ebert’s quote and review, the movie’s plot and characters are pretty surface level. I don’t see how the plot is that engaging. Belittling the movie down to its bare bones: Harrison Ford falls for a robot, crazy robot slaves hit earth and start causing havoc and inflicting murder, then Ford must take down these robots, with little room left for plot nuance. It just wasn’t a compelling story, and at the end of the day, that’s what matters most. Without stripping the film down, Blade Runner just feels like something is missing in the story. Because the replicants lack personality (because they’re robots…) we have to rely on Deckard, who isn’t too interesting of a guy to begin with. There also weren’t any plot twists or unexpected turns. Certain people were killed and that was expected as they were obstacles to the replicants. Without a compelling plot line, Blade Runner is just a bleak simulation of a future driven by rapid technological advancements and its consequences.
Blade Runner is more good than it is bad. But its plot will never not be a little disappointing and apparent while disappointing you. But hey! Ridley Scott, Jordan Cronenweth, and countless others killed it on the mise-en-scene side of things. Really just for that, I give the movie a 79.