Blade Runner 2049

"Is it real?" asks Ryan Gosling of a dog that Harrison Ford owns in "Blade Runner 2049." Whether it is a virtual pet or not is never quite answered, but the question also applies to much of film -- Denis Villeneuve's gorgeous sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic. So many of the situations and characters are virtual or synthetic that the film becomes a meditation on reality itself. That it is enigmatic will likely be an issue with some viewers, especially those unfamiliar with Ridley Scott's original film, which, if I remember correctly, wasn't strongly embraced by critics and audiences at the time of its initial release. Over time it became a cult classic, finally returning to the screen in this $185,000,000 sequel some 35 years later. (The original cost $28,000,000 in 1982 dollars.)

But those familiar with the original, or willing to succumb to its serpentine narrative, "Blade Runner 2049" is a considerable achievement - a recapitulation and expansion of the first film's themes of social caste systems created by technological advances and dangers it engenders. As in the earlier film, the oppressed class are synthetic humans, called replicants, who are something of slaves to those in power. When they began to have free will, an elite cadre of security forces, called Blade Runners, is authorized to dispose of them. In the earlier film, Ford played one of those Blade Runners, who sets out to kill one feisty renegade (Rutger Hauer) while falling in love with another one (Sean Young).

Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford in "Blade Runner 2049"

This film moves the action 35 years later and skillfully recreates the astounding visual world of the original, which at the time was quite a sight to behold. Again, Los Angeles is a dense metropolis with soaring skyscrapers adorned with mammoth LED signage, but today it is augmented with giant holograms that playfully taunt those that come close to them. And perhaps because of global warming the constant rain of the first film is replaced with snow flurries, which often gives its foreboding Los Angeles landscapes the look of a pristine winter's landscape.

Indeed much of this film takes place in vast, empty settings with just a handful of characters, focusing mostly on Officer K (Gosling), a Blade Runner who represents the new generation of replicants who have been neutered of any ability to think and feel on their own. K and his peers are on the trail of the last of the first generation of replicant renegades, who include one that has lived undercover as a farmer for years until K catches up with him. His execution, though, opens up a mystery for K and his supervisor Lieutenant Joshi (a hard-boiled Robin Wright) when they discover a trunk filled with bones buried on the farm.

A scene from "Blade Runner 2049"

Who these bones belong to and what they represent drives the narrative, which puts K in contact with the all-powerful corporate monolith that created the new generation of replicants. His main adversary is the ironically named Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), a steely hit woman for Niander Wallace, the aforementioned corporation's blind owner played with Messiah-like elan by Jared Leto. K spends a good deal of the film tracking down the clues as to just what the finding of the bones means and, after considerable screen time connects him with Rick Deckard (Ford), who lives in exile in a penthouse in now radioactive Las Vegas.

Ridley Scott, who produced the film, asks critics not to give too much away in their reviews (which leaves me wondering if I've already told too much). And he's right. Part of what makes this sequel so special is how slowly and deliberatively the narrative unravels and how beautifully it creates the complex social and political dynamic of this dystopian world. In doing so Villeneuve pretty much succeeds at the near-impossible task of evoking the original while giving the film his personal stamp.

Ryan Gosling and Ana de Armas in "Blade Runner 2049"

A good deal of the film recreates the technological advances in investigation techniques used in the earlier film that both were fascinating to watch and chilling in their cultural implications, and Villeneuve imbues the film with an emotional resonance that builds to an epiphany-of-sorts. Screenwriters Hampton Fancher and Michael Green do include a crucial scene that suggests if there's another sequel, it will be of the bigger, more conventional variety. Here, though, Villeneuve offers a skillful recapitulation of the original in both themes and look, which is pretty astounding to watch. The superb cinematography is by Roger Deakins, with starkly beautiful production design by Dennis Gassner, and an effective (and very loud) synth-heavy score in the style of the Vangelis original by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch.

At times Gosling appears to evoke Ford's cool Sam Spade-like Deckard from the original film, but with a sadness, which becomes more apparent as he unravels the central mystery. His best moments come with his interactions with Joi (a terrific Ana de Armas), his virtual girlfriend who is like Suri come-to-life. (In cinematic terms, think the character Scarlett Johansson played in Spike Jonze's "Her.") One of the loveliest sequences has Joi employ a surrogate human whom she embodies in order for her to have sex with Gosling. Playful and obedient, the aptly named Joi offers a sense of security in K's life, one that is obviously false by her fleeting moments of transparency.

Ryan Gosling in "Blade Runner 2049"

One of the film's biggest questions is how does Gosling play with Ford when they finally meet up. That question may best be answered by the viewer, but that the final sequences prove to be so emotionally involving says that the actors have chemistry. Gosling succeeds largely by underplaying, Ford the opposite; but somehow they balance nicely. But the film's success falls squarely on Villeneuve who manages to take a classic sci-fi film and retool it for the 21st century.

"Blade Runner 2049" is slow and methodical, but also mesmerizing in its mix of technological advances and its depiction of a stratified world not far removed from the one Fritz Lang envisioned in "Metropolis" nearly a century ago. As he did in last year's "Arrival," Villeneuve fashions a sci-fi spectacle that will likely leave you thinking upon leaving the theater - a rare event in a time when most tentpole movies are forgotten about ten minutes after seeing.