Andrew McMurtryREVIEW: Blade Runner: Director's Cut (1982)
October 7th 2008 00:42
“Blade Runner” is a Sci-fi Film Noir film. It's set in a time of eternal night due to the level of pollution thanks to the over industrialisation of the world. The main character, Rick Deckard, is a hard boiled detective character, which is the main character of flm noir, as a Blade Runner charged with hunting down rogue replicants. The fact that he is hunting down replicants, instead of humans shows the Science Fiction genre. In the film, replicants are created humans but without emotion and any concept of human feelings. Or so that is the belief in the early stages of the film. Ridley Scott has based a Film Noir movie in the not too distant future in a dystopic world where all humanity has been lost by humans. In busy scenes with lots of people around, no one talks to each other as everyone drifts along disconnected from their fellow human beings.
As in other Film Noir films, “Blade Runner” has the corruption of the powerful and the lone wolf detective, Deckard, who fights for the truth behind all the events of the film. In “Blade Runner” though, you get the feeling that Deckard is just the vehicle to get the story out rather than a hero. He does not seem to possess the classic hero temperament and is more a hard-boiled detective than the hero.
The most surprising thing in this film is the way that the roles are reversed. As I said before, Deckard is just the vehicle to tell the story rather than a hero. Initially we suspect that the replicants are evil creations but this is not the case. Replicants are made to possess all the human attributes except for feelings. They have been built to be slaves in the Off-World colonies and have to fight for their lives. They have been given lives and, after 4 years they automatically shut down and die. They come to Earth because they want more life. While Roy Batty, the leader of the replicant contingent in LA, brutally murders several people, he is not a bad man. All he wants is life.
This dystopia that director Ridley Scott has created is a social commentary of how the world is changing. The earth, which has been virtually destroyed by environmental catastrophes, is only inhabited by those deemed unfit to travel away from the earth. The environmental destruction is shown by the darkness, smog and never-ending rain that always seems to be around. The level of garbage piled in the street is another indicator of this. There is also the absence of nature. The extent of separation in this world is so great that all nature is being artificially replicated as well. This leads to Scott using artificial lighting as nature can no longer sustain any source of light in the world. This allows Scott to use great amounts of darkness and shadow.
Basically, as i have said several times above, “Blade Runner” is a Film Noir film set in a Science Fiction world. We still get the feeling that we don’t know what is going to happen around the corner. Several things jump out and surprise us, including Leon, a replicant, coming out of nowhere to beat up Deckard. The reveal of the replicants as the ones displaying humanity at the end is another surprise in this film. In the end, we are given a confusing meaning, leaving it up to the audience to determine certain questions, like the big question of, is Deckard a replicant himself? We also can not know if the ending is hopeful or just desperate. That's the thing with this movie, it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Another thing I found was that i didn't think the script was overly strong, except for some very memorable speeches. I found this slightly frustrating but overall I enjoyed most of the movie. I would recommend this movie for those people who are really into sci-fi and like to think during a movie. I'd give this 2.5 out of 5 stars.
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