Razno razno razno

Love in the Time of Nuclear War

by K. Austin Collins
The year was 1988, a high point in American history for both nuclear fear and modern romance at the movies. In ‘Miracle Mile,’ romance collides with the apocalypse, setting the middle-class idealism of the Reagan era against its sense of chaos for a uniquely hopeful kind of disaster film.

For better and for worse, Blade Runner 2049 is a movie made for these indulgent, 280-character cinematic times, when plot points have to be spelled out and themes stated over and over again, with little room left for ambiguity. Villeneuve broods and luxuriates, whereas the original Blade Runner had a fractured poetry to it, born probably of Scott’s own indifference to typical story mechanics. The earlier film delicately balanced terse, noirish metaphor with New Age dreaminess. All that has been replaced by something far more aggressive and familiar — a chase/quest narrative that feels not unlike any number of sci-fi/fantasy blockbusters from the past couple of decades. Meanwhile, little echoes of Vangelis’s unforgettable 1982 soundtrack are drowned out by the BRRAAAAAAHHHM of Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch’s score. It’s everything, and more, and too much, and somehow not enough.
I realize I’m invoking the first movie way too much here. And yes, sequels and reboots deserve to stand on their own. But it’s hard to leave the original behind when 2049 itself insists on referencing it at every turn, choosing to replay entire subplots from its legendary forebear as mysteries to be unearthed. That feels like a miscalculation. Part of the magic of Blade Runner was what was missing: It was like an earworm, insinuating itself into your brain thanks in part to the fact that it felt strangely incomplete. You wanted to see it again because you needed to see it again; its mysteries began when the end credits rolled. Careful, dutiful, and beautiful, Blade Runner 2049 cannot achieve the sublime slipperiness of Scott’s masterpiece. Whether it even needs to is up to you.