Blade Runner: The Final Cut

Seeing as this movie is based 10 years from the present year, I'm guessing in a couple we're heading for a complete and total mind-warp, considering the flying cars, severe overpopulation of chinese folk (though most of us are kind of used to that by now) and the giant chinese-speaking advertisements that will surely give those with an abnormal oriental prejudice vivid nightmares. The world of Blade Runner is not one that can be summed up so easily in words, yet for the sake of reviewing I must. The environment we are brought into from the very beginning is one of dense overpopulation, highly polluted air, and a sense of capitalism that has taken on its own form of dystopia. So right away it gives us an uplifting feeling and an optimistic look at the bright future ahead.

/sarcasm

Blade Runner, for many, many reasons, is genius in a bottle. That is, if films came in bottles. The movie, made in 1982, gives us not only a vivid and believable look at just where our planet might be headed, but also views into life, man, God, and many other facets those of us think of every day. To summarize the plot without giving anything away, is that Rick Deckard, a "Blade Runner" is assigned a mission by force to find and "retire" machines referred to as replicants. These replicants, made by the seemingly all-powerful Tyrell Corporation, mimic life in utmost accuracy so as to be used for various services, such as slave labor, militarity, and prostitution, though lacking the feelings of a normal human being. However a slave revolt on a space colony immediately makes all replicants on Earth illegal, and subject to being terminated, or retired. Deckard's responsibility is to kill 4 replicants who have come down to Earth for unknown reasons.

Although reviews, for the sake of the reader, should be short and accurate, for Blade Runner it's extremely hard to do so. For time's sake, I guess I'll say this. Almost everything in this movie is a metaphor. Every movement of every character's face represents something, every line of dialogue is there for a reason, and every character could have a movie of their own and not bore the audience in the slightest. The beauty of this movie doesn't come from getting everything the first time around, but after a few viewings, where more and more things become apparent as an intricately thought out symbol, or an intelligent view on our future.

Take the Chinese overpopulation for one thing. If our world were to overpopulate, why would Blade Runner's main culture be Chinese? The vast majority of Asian people in the world compared to any other race makes it obvious that in a state of world overpopulation, Chinese would indeed be the over-running race, leaving the rest of the races to scatter, mostly. Now, this might seem apparent now, but the film was made in 1982, and such a clever and subtle prediction in the movie just shows how genius this movie is.

Another example is when Deckard is in the Tyrell Corporation early in the movie. This scene is the only scene in the movie where the Sun is shown. Knowing this, notice how Tyrell uses his power to polarize the sun itself with his advanced window technology, just to darken the room. This very low-key symbolism could very well represent the god-like power of the Tyrell Corporation.

Performances are key in all great movies, and Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer offer characters so intriguing and complex, simply one viewing of this movie couldn't possibly sum them up. Nor could this review, for those who haven't seen the movie. So if you consider yourself a movie-goer in any sense of the word, you'll delight in these characters. Every other character is well thought out and interesting themselves, namely Gaff, the fellow police-man who's origami sums up far more than it's simplistic shape, and Rachel, an emotionally confused replicant.

I saw this movie in its newly released Blu-Ray edition, entitled The Final Cut. Although this version isn't essential to enjoy the movie, I really do recommend this. It's such a huge leap over the original Director's Cut, in every way. To any movie it's a compliment that it can be watched twice, and huge if it can be watched 3 times in a small time frame. I saw this movie 4 times in 2 months. If that doesn't say anything, hell I honestly don't know what does.

This film gets an easy 10/10 from me.