Blade Runner - The Final Cut (2007)
Directed by Ridley Scott. US. 1982. R. Running time: 117 min.
- Fri, Oct 3, 9:45 pm
More obsessive fans than I will have to parse the alterations found within Blade Runner: The Final Cut, Ridley Scott's latest—and supposedly last—version of his seminal 1982 future noir. To these eyes, the most discernable change is simply AV-related, as the considerable upgrades in the audio and video departments lend newfound luster to the influential classic's portrait of dystopian 2019 Los Angeles, in which Harrison Ford's Deckard, a semi-retired cop known as a blade runner, attempts to track down a foursome of renegade slave cyborgs known as replicants. Even as it deliberately harks back to '40s pulp fiction and many of its elements now appear creakily dated byproducts of the '80s (hello, Sean Young's hair!), the radiant image and sound clarity helps reconfirm Blade Runner (loosely based on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) as a landmark achievement in inventive prognostication. Whether it be its narrative fatalism or its haunting evocation of its urban setting, a multicultural techno-grunge hellhole drenched in rain, infested with advertising and shrouded in mist, the film continues to be the mother of modern sci-fi, blending disparate genres with philosophical queries to produce a work that remains, 25 years and reams of critical analysis later, the style-over-substance Scott's only substantive text. (Nick Schager, Slant.com)
Click here to continue reading Nick Schager's review on Slant.com.
Click here to read Keith Phipp's review on The AV Club.com.