Blade Runner 2049 review

There’s a lot to admire about Denis Villeneuve’s “Blade Runner 2049.” This long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 cult-masterpiece attempts to step up the cyberpunk aesthetics and moody atmosphere of its sci-fi predecessor, while also tackling similar themes about the meaning of consciousness and what it is to be human. Given his past success with handsomely directed genre fare such as “Sicario” and 2016’s “Arrival,” Villeneuve’s involvement signaled to fans that this follow up would be a serious attempt at continuing the mysterious and oft-debated subject matter of the original. Serious is certainly a word that could be used to describe what we  ended up with here. The pulpy dime-store detective fiction that inspired Scott’s previous entry has now been glossed over with a more dreamlike, somber take on the material that fits more into Villeneuve’s bleak authorial world-view.

Ryan Gosling plays a bio-engineered police officer called Agent-K. He’s a Blade Runner that is hired by the LAPD to ‘retire’ older replicants that have gone rogue. While working on a case involving a shocking cover-up, in which a female replicant gave natural birth, he finds his mysterious past and his implanted memories coming into question. The further he digs into the case, he becomes more fervently pursued by his governmental employers, as well as the nefarious manufacturers known as the Wallace Corporation. Both of these parties have a lot to lose in the world finding out how much closer to humans the replicants have become.

This film boasts a large and eclectic cast including Robin Wright as Gosling’s tough boss Lieutenant Joshi, Jared Leto as the sadistic Niander Wallace, as well as relative newcomers like Ana De Armas as Goslings digital companion Joi, and Sylvia Hoek’s as Niander’s lethal mercenary Luv. Gosling is essentially our cipher into this world, traveling though his existential journey, which eventually leads us to Harrison Ford’s return as Rick Dekkard. But it’s the women in the film and K’s relationship to these women that dominates the narrative. Wright represents the sociological and bureaucratic structures that keeps K ignorant of his life beyond his function as a Blade Runner and replicant. Joi represents his yearning for something more profound, while the dangerous Luv represents his fear of the truth.  In some ways this backdoor approach to Gosling’s character diminishes his role as a protagonist, making him far less proactive in his own journey. As a result, though his performance is appropriate for the material, he’s can be a passive drip to follow. Nevertheless, Villeneuve gives all of these characters enough screen time and stakes in the plot to realize their motivations beyond their function as stock, pulpy archetypes.

Working again with cinematographer Roger Deakins, this movie is a marvel to gaze upon. The sleek production design and Deakin’s moody capturing of light and shadow, along with Villeneuve’s symmetrical shot set-ups and steady direction, creates for a monolithic, sometimes oppressive style that always keeps the eye engaged through this close-to three hour feature. Characters are often shot much smaller in the frame, placed around larger, totemic buildings and structures in the background and foreground, underlining the director’s point that they are overwhelmed by the cold, technological reality around them.

“Blade Runner 2049” only falls a little short in its ability to connect the audience with the movie’s larger themes through the characters wants and desires. This issue tries to correct itself through a few emotional arcs, the most successful being Gosling’s relationship with his IOS girlfriend—De Armas doing most of the heavy lifting there. But as a secondary plot point, it can’t lift the spirits of this admittedly dower project as a whole. However, it would also be a lie to call this anything less than an achievement of quality filmmaking. It’s large and ambitious without devolving into mindless destruction and the action set-pieces are always rooted in story concerns. Villeneuve is confident in his own cinematic abilities and though this work is colder than the 1982 neo-noir classic, it does advance the lore in a respectful and artful manner.

Grade: B

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Oct-2017

Listen to this week's episode of Jabber and the Drone to hear more conversation about "Blade Runner 2049" 

Arrival review

Amy Adams stars as a grieving mother who embarks on a personal journey to connect with her past by ensuring the safety of our future, as she helps our government make first contact with an intelligent alien species. Over the last few years the awards season has spawned a new genre, and this high-brow science fiction release echoes the emotional timbres of Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” as well as Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity,” along with the pro-science message of Ridley Scott’s “The Martian.” Space exploration and a thirst to better understand our place in the universe has been reflected in these high-budget, philosophically-minded genre films, and in that regard, Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival” reaches for headier themes, heavier emotions and leaves a larger gap for the audience to meet its challenging narrative structure.

After twelve massive, bean-shaped vessels arrive at seemingly random locations on our globe, Adams’ Dr. Louise Banks, a scholar of linguistics, is recruited by Colonel Weber (Forrest Whitaker) to make sense of the aliens’ vocalizations. After joining the effort, she meets mathematician Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), who notices patterns in the otherworldly scribe they photograph while trying to talk with the beings through a translucent barrier deep within their ship. While the American team is making slow progress, other world governments are less cautious about enacting a preemptive strike against their new visitors, making it all the more imperative for Dr. Banks and her staff to decipher the aliens’ exact purpose for landing.

It’s hard not admire Villeneuve’s ambition here, as this picture aims to weave structure with emotional storytelling, with the intentions of being a broad science-fiction and a character piece at the same time. The movie also wishes to work as a social allegory about the state of our international relations and how an event such as a global alien arrival could easily activate simmering political tensions around the globe.

 Under the visual and tonal guidance of Villeneuve, the screenplay’s tricky flashback/flash-forward mechanics doesn’t overwhelm the themes or the emotional core of the film, though Adam’s portrayal as the multi-layered and complicated lead is at times coldly beholden to mystery of her character.

The film’s many storytelling goals prevents Adams from revealing too much about her interior state through her performance, which creates an impressionistic take on the character that doesn’t always gel with the film’s pulpier leanings. After we are given the character’s backstory and we with her in real-time as she’s interpreting an intergalactic coffee ring alphabet, we want to be closer to the character when the script keeps pulling her away for the sake of a clever third-act reveal. Renner works to provide a lighter and more immediate foil for Adams to exist on screen with, but even he is sometimes obscured by film’s impressionism.  

Villeneuve’s recent crime-thrillers “Prisoners” and last year’s “Sicario” shared bleak and hopeless views of humanity, while “Arrival” aims to give us clarity and hope for our future. While the production design and key set-pieces recall the scale and awe of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Bradford Young’s tender cinematography evokes the warmth and spiritual montage of Terrance Malick’s later work, marrying the cerebral and instinctual cinema of both directors. The script’s gotchya revelations eventually pay off and once the film’s many flashbacks are informed by the twist, the movie’s complex structure blends quite nicely into a much-needed message of optimism and enlightenment.

Grade: B+

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Nov-2016

Listen to this week's episode of Jabber and the Drone to hear more conversation about "Arrival."

Sicario review

There’s been a long tradition of southwest, boarder-town noirs that reach as far back as Anthony Mann’s 1949 film “Boarder Incident” and as recent as the Coen brother’s “No Country For Old Men,” as well as television’s “Breaking Bad.” Surprisingly, as worn as this genre may be, Denis Villeneuve’s “Sicario” still manages to find new life underneath old tropes and effectively tightens the screws with tense, Hitchcockian set-ups.

Emily Blunt plays Kate Macer, a moral FBI agent who’s hired by a government special operations unit to take down a powerful cartel leader who’s responsible for a number of indiscriminate killings and mutilations. In hopes of doing the right thing to get to the worst evils of society, she realizes that the deeper she gets involved the less her convictions and her morals will help her with the job at hand.

From the opening sequence when we see Blunt and her fellow agents break into a remotely located drug-house, with gunmen behind every corner and dead-bodies shrink-wrapped behind the dry-wall, Villeneuve establishes a Dante-like hell that increasingly challenges our hero as she descends deeper into each circle of its depravity. Josh Brolin plays her duplicitous guide into this journey named Matt Graver, a man who smugly wears flip-flops to office meetings and hides his elusive motives behind a casual smile. Benicio Del Toro’s Alejandro is an even tougher nut to crack, as he seems to be able to brutally operate outside of the strict confines of the law with complete immunity. Blunt serves as the audience’s surrogate but also as the movie’s moral center and its heart. To her credit, given the mechanical function of her character, she manages to breath in sync with the camera and effectively embodies Villeneuve’s tone of paranoia.

As with the director’s last film “Prisoners,” this feature was shot by the much-celebrated cinematographer Roger Deakins, and like his past work—including “No Country for Old Men”—every shot is precisely considered and milks each frame for ominous drama. Deakins’ artful approach to photography, along with the film’s doom-laden score by Jóhann Jóhannsson perfectly accents the movie’s many apocalyptic establishing shots and creates a malevolent sense of dread within the world these characters inhabit.

Luckily “Sicario” understands that aesthetics alone doesn’t make a movie without an assured story to tell and a confident director at the helm. Taylor Sheridan’s hard-boiled screenplay examines the war on drugs as a complicated parable with a “Chinatown” sense of pessimism. Villeneuve perfectly captures this with his nightmarish vision of violence as the last form of communication between the law and lawless.


This certainly isn’t a happy film and if you’re not inclined to watch a crime story that stares deep into the abyss without any tangible hope to keep from falling directly into it, then this might not be your ideal Saturday night. I, however, can’t recommend this movie highly enough. The performances across the board are fantastic—perhaps the best I’ve seen from all the leads in years—and it’s great to see a mainstream movie that’s isn’t satisfied with simply fulfilling its genre conventions.  Instead “Sicario” digs its familiar premise deeper for existential conflict and a darker tonal ambiance. 

Grade: A

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Oct-2015