Review of Blade Runner 2049

Let me start with the length. I like long movies, properly done, they give you an extended, hopefully rewarding experience. But first, that experience has to be generated. I am not sure what experience this sequel is working toward. It is very vague and amorphous and extremely patchy. The patches do not work toward a cohesive whole. It is as if they will need another movie of equal length to make it coherent and to finally find some meaning (I am sure that idea was/is being kicked around). A slapped together, disjointed, virtually incoherent mix of settings, characters, images, dialogue, etc. sums up the essence of this movie. This is amplified by how these elements are obviously borrowed from other films. Considering the visuals, we get some interesting tricks that are amusing for a moment but they serve as distractions from the thin, hazy plot. In the original, the viewer is allowed to immerse them-self into the dystopic Los Angeles and get a feel for it. That dystopia was absurd and beyond unlikely in many ways but the richness and consistency with which it was presented made it easy to accept it temporarily. Not here, instead we get absurdity for sure but internal logic is not even attempted. We get a very strange place that is never explained and never makes sense. Are we so dumbed down as viewers that we just accept any mishmash of extreme images wrapped in fog as a coherent and believable vision-of-the-future? Dialogue? Being vague and pseudo-cryptic with some cynical clichés does not equal being profound or meaningful. There are very few characters of any kind here and by the end, I did not care about any of them, even Ryan Gosling's "protagonist". There is leftover sympathy for Harrison Ford's Deckard but they don't help it along much and there is not much for him to do. By the time he shows up, one is momentarily hopeful that something interesting will finally happen. But instead he just passively folds into the slowly swirling mess. The dog that hangs out with Deckard for a while might have been the most sympathetic creature. At least he/she might have been a creature. Keeping track of who/what might be human, replicant, or hologram is not easy. Again, this is a huge contrast to the original that had a large number of substantial characters. Another symptom of the patchwork is the number of wasted clichés and theatrical name dropping. For example, Dave Batista had a small part that he does well but which was incidental at most. Edward James Olmos was back from the original just so they could say he was there. These bits attempt, but fail to paper over the fact that very little actually happens. We don't even get any good fight scenes. (one tries to find a silver lining and fails) If you missed this movie, please don't worry, there are better ways to use the time. In fact, you will be better off as your memory of the original will not have the shadow of this cast over it.