The original Blade Runner is a science fiction classic. Sculpted from the mold of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Ridley Scott helped create the Cyberpunk genre, leaving the film's DNA in countless other science fiction films since. The announcement of a sequel, then, came with an equal sense of elation and trepidation. Thankfully, the concerns were largely unwarranted: Blade Runner 2049 is a stunning film.
Set 30 years after the original film, the sequel follows K (Ryan Gosling), a Blade Runner tasked with 'retiring' the remaining rogue replicant models from earlier times. The world has changed a lot since the end of the first film: the Tyrell Corporation, the original creators of the replicants, has bit the dust, replaced by a bigger, badder corporation with their own line of subservient replicants. In the course of a simple investigation, K begins to explore what it truly means to be human.
Blade Runner 2049 expands on the concepts established by the first film. There are themes of identity and disconnection in the first film, where the hunted replicants try to understand their own existence and their purpose in life. In this film, these concepts are expanded upon, and new themes join them. In the world of 2049, the world has undergone drastic change, yet many sociocultural problems remain: people still lack a sense of connection with each other, people take the environment for granted, and people still mistreat and marginalize other groups of people (take note that the hierarchy of the first film has only solidified even more with this film, with a racially pure upper class and a multicultural lower class.)
Blade Runner 2049 is filled with wide shots, often juxtaposing its characters and large, expansive vistas. In his third collaboration with Denis Villeneuve, Roger Deakins uses his mastery of light and shadow to communicate the smallness of our characters, a sense of desolation both literal and visual. This becomes a source of existential dread, a fear of being a mere insignificant speck in a vast and uncaring universe. Many of the characters in Blade Runner 2049 seek purpose in life, seeking definitions of their identity that transcend mere 'humanity'. Some seek this purpose in the form of a predestined role written out for them. But the film holds no deterministic pretensions. Ultimately, the film says, our purpose comes from the meaning we put into it ourselves. There are no saviors or messiahs other than the ones we become through our own means.
Other than asking "am I real?" Blade Runner 2049 asks, "are my memories and emotions real?" and "is this connection real?" Amidst its heterotopic landscapes, the people of 2049 are even more isolated from each other than ever before, a source of enduring despair and loneliness. Within that despair, K tries to connect with a virtual companion, Joi. One then wonders if the relationship they share is real, even though one side of that relationship is controlled by algorithms and code. One of the film's major visual motifs this time around are not (just) eyes, but also hands - after all, we try to touch what we cannot see with our eyes; it is the major conduit for intimate human interaction. It's this sense, this longing for communication that shapes the character of K and many other characters. It manifests as hands that appear to caress, but might not be felt, as hands both real and imaginary syncing to provide manufactured intimacy, as hands that maim and kill and comfort - as a hand against a pane of glass, yearning for reconnection.
Thematically dense, expertly lensed and scored, and filled with amazing performances, Blade Runner 2049 is one of the year's best films. Though deliberately paced, it is absorbing and immersive. It not only serves as a worthy sequel to the original film, it stands by itself as an astounding piece of science fiction.
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