You know what? If you haven’t already surmised, I try to be a ‘glass is half full’ kinda guy when it comes to reviewing movies. Some consider that a fault, the negative poundings seem to get more clicks. But I don’t like to watch a movie that leaves me feeling bad. Fuck that. That’s what going to the DMV is for. The escapisms through the silver screen help salve those wounds a bit. So when you revisit what I consider the best sci-fi movie ever made, there’s gonna be some conflictin emotions here. Well, maybe not so much for that original voice-over version, but three versions later? Yeah, nailed it! This one tries so hard to capture that same vibe while injecting an updated aesthetic. Fails on the first, guess it does ok on the latter though. So there. One good thing about the movie. One.
If you don’t know the original, well, I pity you and have no sympathy for the loss of your brainjuice to the earths when you die a lonely, Bladerunnerless life. Reminiscence of a favorite film, whatever it is, casts a strange spell on our electron-filled brains, or whatever else kindsa quarks and neutrons make that headmeat up. So I honestly haven’t watched this again since seeing it after first released. It’s conflicting. It’s a different beast while catching a lot of the same beats of the first. Plot synopsis here? Watch the first one, then imagine an emo arty slow-dragging version of that with practically all the mystery removed. With characters so uncharactery and one-dimensional that it just makes one irritable.
I guess I tried to ignore some of the things that bothered me about this the first time around. Now? Now. It makes me sad how some filters have changed in my film appreciation in a relatively few short years. The suspension of disbelief has been tainted by the creeping malignancy of potentially suspect intentions. I don’t mind arty films that may linger a little too long on certain shots or scenes, but director Villeneuve has worn out his welcome here. His first Dune? Was ok. The second part in 2024? almost insufferable. Arrival? An indicator where this was heading for fuckeries that have inevitably followed.
While most of the subplots are either boring or boringer, I think it’s the BullShit Madam Captain character wedged in there that just appalling in the dialogue _and_ the portrayal. And the inevitable Tyrell replacement that’s ambivalent to moralities isn’t fascinating, he’s just a huge prick. Villeneuve can make stuff look cool. He should go back to directing music videos. Oh yeah, they killed that art-form too. Fuck these guys. The glow of the movie when first seen has faded, the cool potential concepts of 30 years later squandered. SQUANDERED! Philip K. Dick would not approve. Or maybe he would. I don’t know. He was kinda crazy there at the end. Damn. I miss good unsullied original sci-fi. This one just seems like an odd amalgamation of the old with the hacked, broken new. It’s still a detective story like the first, but just removes itself that much more from the coolness of the original.
