Blade Runner

UK Release Date. 9 September 1982
Certification. AA
Running Time. 1 hour 54 mins
Director. Ridley Scott
Cast. Harrison Ford, Daryl Hannah, Rutger Hauer, Edward James Olmos, William Sanderson, Sean Young.
Rating. 99%

Review.

From the off, I must declare that Blade Runner is my favourite film. It has been for almost 40 years. In my opinion, Blade Runner remains one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. 

Loosely adapted from Philip K. Dick's 1968 short story, Do androids dream of electric sheep? Blade Runner introduced the world to the author's vision of virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Ridley Scott's interpretation of a Los Angeles of the future (in fact, 2019) remains one of the most visually stunning in cinema history. The towering, megamodern cityscape, dominated by Asian corporations, with eerie, giant electronic billboards is a voluptuously decadent, sensory-overloaded portrait of Los Angeles in a dystopian future devoid of human emotion. It suggests a planet of perpetual night, a landscape of reflected neon predominantly seen through sheets of driving rain. 

Harrison Ford's portrayal of a blunt and brusque Rick Deckard provides one of the enduring puzzles of the film - is he, too, a replicant? He is dour and unengaged, with a curdling cynicism and he inherently lacks his victims' detached innocence. Yet, all we can say for certain is that director Ridley Scott has left numerous clues in various versions of the film that can be used to prove either hypothesis - that Deckard is a human or that Deckard is a replicant.

There are purported to be be seven different versions of Blade Runner. I was fortunate enough to see a screening of the Blade Runner: The Final Cut recently as part of The Glasgow Film Theatre's 50th Birthday Celebration. Blade Runner: The Final Cut is generally regarded as the definitive version of the film and may even merit a 100% rating. The restoration of both visuals and sound is pure perfection and reflects a higher technical standard than ever before. Its a film that offers so much, and does so with next-to-no flaws. Initially, the film was burdened by numerous studio impositions, most famously an inane voiceover. Spoken by Ford, the narration explained elements on behalf of a studio nervous that the audience wouldn't understand the film. Surprisingly, as Scott has always possessed the ability to make action on a vast scale seem comprehensible, e.g. Alien, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and The Martian.

Where Blade Runner excels is in its examination into the nature of memory, identity, and what it means to be human. The characters, behind their damaged and defensive facades, are well realised. Ford's performance as the world-weary Deckard is in stark contrast to Rutger Hauer's dynamic portrayal of the formidable Roy Batty; a replicant whose climatic haunting words, reveal the fragility of time,

"I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."

Science fiction rarely gets as thought-provoking, emotional and entertaining as Blade Runner and the film richly deserves its reputation as arguably the most influential science fiction film ever made.