Member review

I chose this film to review as it was close to my interest in science fiction and I expected to be surprised by nuances that you wouldn’t expect of a similar movie from the period. I have heard great things about the director Ridley Scott; famous for Alien and later Gladiator and Harrison Ford stars off the success of playing Han Solo in Star Wars so both have experience with sci-fi, I am watching what is advertised as the final cut of the film as there are quite a few versions of the film. I am expecting to like the film as I have heard nothing but good things about it. I expect the film to have great set design based on hearsay on the film that I have heard and Scott’s and traditional cyberpunk themes and tropes (e.g. androids/cyborgs and anticorporation themes).

After watching the film, I can safely say that I like the movie, but I think I would have to watch it a second time to fully understand everything. The story of the film is a bounty hunter for androids (in this world called replicants), known as blade runners named Deckard is pulled out of retirement to eliminate (known in their business as retiring) four replicants who came to earth to find their creator to change their lifespan as replicants have a limited lifespan of four years. The movie opens with a text crawl similar to Star Wars which helps explain the world and backstory of the movie as the film doesn’t have time to ft it in organically to the main narrative. I’m surprised that they kept to the narrative as I’ve seen films like this where the main plot is attached to a bigger conspiracy where that becomes the new main plot. I personally feel like I would need to give it a second watch, but I think that most will be able to follow the plot with ease.

One thing I was surprised by was the noir detective narrative and direction as I didn’t expect that from a 80’s cyberpunk movie but I think it helps the movie as it can take from many sources. The scene that sticks in my mind is the opening scene, it shows the world you will be watching so well and the background music really adds to the feel of it all. One thing I don’t like is that sometime the music, the sets or both can overpower the scene and performance of the actors which is a shame as they are quite good. Overall I did like the movie and I would recommend it.