8.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.7 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin WrightSci-Fi | 100% |
Epic | 58% |
Thriller | 41% |
Drama | 26% |
Mystery | 26% |
Film-Noir | 22% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English DD=narrative descriptive
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Rarely has a movie arrived in theaters with the peculiar mixture of anticipation and dread that
awaited director Denis Villeneuve's sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 Blade Runner. Although many
key members of the original creative team returned for Blade Runner 2049—including
screenwriter Hampton Fancher, visual futurist Syd Mead, original star Harrison Ford and Scott
himself as executive producer—the degree of difficulty seemed impossibly high. Scott's film was
a box office failure, but its influence has been incalculable, and its fan base has only grown larger
and more fanatical over time, spurred just as much by the originality of Blade
Runner's dystopian imagination as by the new versions that continued to appear over the next
twenty-five years. Each of those versions, whether called "Workprint" or "Director's Cut",
supposedly brought us closer to the original vision that Scott was forced to compromise due to
financial constraints and a production beset by strife. Blade Runner has long been steeped in dual
mythologies, one from its provocative content and another from its tortuous path to the screen.
After many hurdles both legal and technical had been cleared, the version officially
designated as "the Final Cut" finally appeared in 2007, but it didn't so much lay any controversies to
rest as open a whole new chapter.
How could any sequel hope to satisfy such a phenomenon's legions of devotees? How could any
creative team not be crushed by the sheer magnitude of an attempt to build on a vision rivaling
Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey for its
originality and its impact on virtually every futuristic
vision that has followed? (Even Luc Besson's comically colorful The Fifth Element walks in
Blade Runner's shadow, because Besson was deliberately trying to do the opposite of whatever
Scott had done.) And how could the story be continued in a way that maintained the delicately
poised ambiguities of Scott's narrative, with its cosmic reverberations and stubborn existential
riddles? Blade Runner may have taken the form of a police procedural wrapped in an eye-poppingly art-designed future, but it was
ultimately a sustained meditation on what it means to be
human.
That Villeneuve and his team succeeded as well as they did is almost as much of a miracle as
Scott's achievement in the original film. It may be an unfortunate badge of their success that the
initial box office for BR 2049 was widely considered disappointing, though nowhere near the
fizzle endured by the original in 1982. Entertainment
Weekly recently pronounced BR 2049 one
of 2017's noteworthy failures, but I think such judgments are premature. The film is destined for
a long afterlife, and while it cannot hope to attain the original's influence—that intensity of
lightning doesn't strike twice—the sequel has now become an essential part of the Blade Runner
lore. Its continuation of the original film's tragic tale and its relentless questioning of the nature
of humanity arises so naturally and organically from Scott's work that the two films cannot be
separated. If you love the first Blade Runner, you are destined to love BR 2049—maybe not right
away, but eventually.
Blade Runner 2049 was shot digitally on the Arri Alexa by the legendary Roger Deakins, one of
the pioneers of digital cinema. Deakins oversaw the film's formatting in two different aspect
ratios, 2.39:1 for standard venues and a "taller" version for IMAX theaters framed at 1.90:1.
Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray contains the standard width (at 2.40:1), which I think is
a missed opportunity, because the IMAX version, which I saw theatrically, makes more effective
use of Dennis Gassner's imposing production design, with its towering ruins and vast interior
spaces. For that reason alone, I cannot give the Blu-ray's video a perfect score.
Nevertheless, the Blu-ray's image is an effective reproduction of BR 2049's varying
environments, which range from the bleak wastelands outside the city limits to the wide and open
spaces in the skies above L.A. (noticeably emptier than in Ridley Scott's film due to off-world
migration) to the pockets of crowded street life that evoke the original film's claustrophobic
urban masses. A vast junkyard is the site of twisted wreckage and barely functional structures
where K visits an orphanage that's more like an internment camp, and the detail of the twisted
steel and urban detritus is impressively displayed. Black levels and fine detail are excellent
throughout.
BR 2049 opens with company logos that have been desaturated, and much of the film is
deliberately monochromatic, especially when K is alone in his apartment or venturing into some
distant locale. Indeed, most of the film's human characters seem to inhabit environments drained
of color, like the vast yellow-and-golden expanses of Wallace Corp. The brightest colors are
generally found in computer imagery and simulations like Joi and in the vibrant neon signage,
ads and holographic projections that still light up parts of the city. (Mariette and her fellow
streetwalkers seem to have taken their cue from the advertising; their attire is the only colorful
clothing in the film.) Some of the most brilliant displays of color appear during a holographic
lounge act that appears late in BR 2049 under circumstances best left for the reader to discover.
The Blu-ray reproduces all of these palette shifts with aplomb, accurately and vividly re-creating
the theatrical experience.
With a running time of two and three-quarter hours, BR 2049 needs all the digital real estate it
can get, and Warner has used an entire BD-50, but, especially with the inclusion of HD extras,
the average bitrate is on the low side at 20.34 Mbps. Nevertheless, the bit budget appears to have
been carefully managed, and the encode has been capably performed.
Blade Runner 2049 arrives with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack that is as adept at sound and fury as
at subtle background ambiance. The report of Officer K's powerful weapon is thunderous and
powerful, and so are the deep bass percussion beats of the score by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin
Wallfisch that creatively builds on Vangelis' signature cues for the 1982 original. (And in a few
critical instances, Zimmer and Wallfisch step entirely out of the way and let Vangelis take over.)
Atmos' height capabilities make the initial entrance of K's spinner feel like it's nearly taken off
your head. The drone strikes on a mob in the wilderness genuinely sound like they're coming
from above.
Quieter sounds are effectively dispersed throughout the listening space: buzzing of bees in the
apiary that K is surprised to find during his quest; the distant piano notes that play like memories
when K enters the building where Deckard is hiding; the cacophony of voices, advertisements
and street noise when K is accosted on a promenade by Mariette and her co-workers; the
torrential rain that is an essential component of the Blade Runner world; the rushing waters
outside the L.A. seawall in a climactic showdown between . . . somebody and somebody. Like
the Dolby Atmos remix done for Blade Runner: The
Final Cut, BR 2049's soundtrack takes
creative advantage of Atmos' spatial capabilities and makes full use of its dynamic range. It
knows when to shout and when to whisper. It's a beautiful track.
Note that the Blu-ray also offers an alternative DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. I'm not sure why it's
necessary, since Atmos offers a lossless Dolby TrueHD core, but it's there for anyone who wants
it.
Newcomers should be warned that BR 2049 replicates the original's deliberate, contemplative
pace, alternating lengthy passages of quietly thoughtful characters and intriguing vistas with sudden
bursts of intense, violent action. It's not a film for short attention spans. Like its predecessor, it
demands sustained attention—and amply rewards it. Leaving aside the unfortunate decision not
to use the IMAX-formatted ratio, the film's Blu-ray presentation is a superb rendition, within the
limitations of the format. But if you want to see BR 2049 at its best, consider the excellent UHD.
Both are highly recommended.
IMAX Enhanced
2017
2017
2017
2017
2017
Limited-Edition Steel Model Spinner
2017
2017
2017
The Final Cut
1982
2016-2022
2016
2015
2008-2013
2010
2015
2008
2009-2010
Selfless
2015
Special Edition
1951
2006
2013
The George Lucas Director's Cut
1971
1997
2018
2011
2018
Autómata
2014
2017