I had a four-hour flight from DFW to Portland, OR, earlier today so had some time to write about things other than the Bakken.
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Blade Runner 2049
Updates
October 17, 2017: in The New Yorker, Anthony Lane gives a review which on the surface suggests he thinks this is a great film, but in fact never mentions that it is Oscar-worthy, and doesn't even say whether he liked it or recommends going. The review is such that it will likely be seen as a glowing review but one could argue that at best, it's simply a "neutral" review, but one that had to be done, and done this way, considering Blade Runner 2049 was the most anticipated sequel in 35 years. The fact that Anthony Lane begins with a Frank Sinatra homage probably did not set the tone for the movie.
October 9, 2017: WSJ "review" here.
October 8, 2017: from The Los Angeles Times -- critics, fans love it -- but very few are buying tickets.
Warner Bros.' "Blade Runner 2049" topped the box office charts this weekend, but despite strong reviews and positive audience reaction, ticket sales were estimated at only $31.5 million in the U.S. and Canada, according to the measurement firm ComScore, significantly below analysts' projections.
A sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi cult classic, "Blade Runner," about a futuristic society where androids known as "replicants" are almost indistinguishable from humans, "Blade Runner 2049" had been estimated to pull in $45 million to $50 million in its opening weekend. The film — directed by Denis Villeneuve and starring Ryan Gosling and Jared Leto, with Harrison Ford reprising his role as Deckard — cost an estimated $150 million to produce after rebates and before marketing costs.
The film earned an 89% "fresh" rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and Times critic Kenneth Turan wrote, “this film puts you firmly, brilliantly, unassailably in another world.” The film received an A-minus grade from audiences surveyed by CinemaScore.
Original Post
But I digress.
I put “never” in quotes because there are exceptions. One of those exceptions was yesterday. My wife really, really wanted to see Blade Runner 2049. It has been billed as the most anticipated sci-film of the year.
After the movie, I told my wife I would never, never, ever, ever, see a new release in a movie theater. It is impossible to articulate how bad that movie was.
But before I go on, please read the review at this site so we all start off on the same page of music. And to some extent I don’t want to repeat what’s already been said at that site.
The number one reason why this movie will fail is because it simply is not credible. It’s the wrong movie at the wrong time. This is another dystopian movie, a subject that was in vogue for awhile a few years ago. But right now, American optimism for the US economy (which spills over to optimism in America, in general) is at an all-time high.
For Hollywood to tell us that in the next decade or so that America will be a dystopian society is simply so incredulous one cannot “suspend belief” and imagine this movie's premise.
The second major problem: minimal plot, and what plot there was, incredibly simple and superficial. My wife loves mysteries and she thought that this would be a mystery of sorts (finding “a lost daughter”). My wife says she had the “mystery” figured out in the first 15 minutes of the movie and there was/were still 148 minutes to go (120 minutes is two hours, so one gets an idea how long she had to wait for the ending).
Along the way, there was absolutely no chapter development. I felt no empathy for any of the characters. The humans engendered no empathy and certainly there’s no empathy for “replicants.”
In a really, really good movie, the director is often able to engender empathy for even “bad guys.” Think of Casablanca. Or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
My wife told me she was really interested in seeing Harrison Ford in this move. I had turned off my cell phone so I couldn’t check the time, but it seemed like the movie was well past the usual length of a movie (90 minutes) and he had still not shown up. I wondered if we were watching the wrong movie, or if she had read the wrong review. And then he appeared. Wow, what a let down. Not that he appeared but how he appeared.
Even knowing that he was a replicant made no difference.
My wife suspended disbelief and gave the movie a break for its incredibly bad vision of technology in 2049.
But for most guys, I suppose, the director's view of technology in 2049 was one of the worst things about the movie. In one scene, looking for data on an orphan “30 years later” the protagonist was led into what looked like a medieval library and the old man (think Merlin the magician) pulled down a huge hard-bound (leather) book and opened it, only to find several critical pages torn out. Okay, let’s spend two seconds thinking about this. The movie is set in 2049. They are looking for data from 30 years earlier. 2049 - 13 = 2019. In 2019 no one is going to be storing data on paper in a leather-bound book (except perhaps Equifax). One could argue that in the dystopia of 2049 all iPads had been destroyed but that is a bridge too far; the entire movie has technology well beyond what we have today.
Having said that, some of the “technology” in 2049 was ludicrous. My wife pointed out that glass still shattered in mile-high skyscrapers. I laughed when I saw flying cars using windshield wipers that were clearly salvaged from a Ford Edsel.
Speaking of flying cars, the only flying cars were LAPD police cars. Certainly other flying cars would have to be around in 2049. Even if only law enforcement were to be allowed cars, there would certainly be unmarked Porsches and Lamborghinis driven by Don Johnson-wannabes ("Sonny" Crockett in Miami Vice). The LAPD vehicle screen displays for the computers were identical to those currently seen in modern urban settings. No Dick Track wrist watches. No Apple Watches.
The six-shooters were no different than what they used in Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, except magnum — and I mean magnum magnum bullets. But even when blowing off someone’s head with one of these magnum bullets at 12 inches, there was almost no blood and gore. Quentin, as in Tarantino, is probably saying, “what the ….?”
One of my biggest disappointments was the way Hollywood still portrayed women: as sex objects. And as sex objects, the nudity was less than what we saw in Hugh Hefner’s early Playboy magazine. The only nudity (there was no sex, but I could have missed something; I often closed my eyes trying to fall asleep the acting was so bad) was female, frontal, and above the navel.
I asked my wife if the nudity was necessary; she thought not. I thought it was completely gratuitous. None of the A-list actresses showed any skin, and so, again, we have no-name starlets hoping to hit the big time on the proverbial casting couch being promised that if they take off their clothes (and probably more) they will get a big part in the next film. My hunch is that the directors and producers have gigabytes of video not in the movie that showed full nudity from every angle for their personal libraries but not for the general public because the movie would have had to sacrifice an “R” rating.
For all that nudity, we will have to wait for the Director’s Cut on Blu-Ray.
My wife missed it until I pointed it out, but Hollywood remains obsessed with the old Soviet Union, and perhaps Russia. Early in the film there was a fair amount of Russian being spoken in the background (not part of the plot; simply to set the scene) and huge advertisements for products from … drum roll .. the “CCCP.” I kid you not: the director envisions the LA consumers will be buying “Soviet” products with the “CCCP” label. There were in-movie commercials for SONY products, coincidentally, but I don’t recall any Coca-Cola products (“I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing”).
Speaking of music, the soundtrack was awful. I did not think it could get any worse until we saw old footage of Harrison Ford’s character’s YouTube favorites: Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra. I kid you not. That was well beyond embarrassing.
So, we have a dystopian society in which the old Soviet Union (the “CCCP”) are now the good guys and as capitalistic and market-driven as SONY. There were several scenes of men and women living in this dystopian society — clearly a take-off of one of the best sci-fi movie scenes ever: the alien bar scene in the first Star Wars movie.
And not one hijab. Not one burqa. Not one niqab. Not even a chador. No tattoos (or very few; again, I could have missed them). Almost no bling; no piercings; again, I could have missed something.
According to the linked review, those under 40 years of age will not be seeing this movie. Apparently, 53% of those going to this movie are white males over the age of 50. These are the guys that are telling pollsters optimism for the American economy is at an all-time high. They will leave the movie in disbelief, and word-of-mouth will kill the move. No one will see it twice.
I started out this post with: “Now that I’ve had 24 hours to cool off, I’ve already started to re-think this.”
This movie is so bad but I may want to watch the Director’s Cut when it comes out on Blu-Ray if it includes voice-over commentary and it contains additional background material in terms of production; actor interviews; etc. Certainly there has to be something redeeming about the movie.
But, wow, there is absolutely nothing good about it nor is there anything believable. The sweatshops populated with bald-headed boys between the ages of 6 and 14 makes no sense whatsoever.
Everything suggests that Hollywood clearly has a different worldview than the rest of America. Even for inner-city youths there is nothing plausible. Some inner-city youths may feel they already live in a dystopian society and sense that it will only get worse for them by 2049, but it won’t look anything like what Blade Runner 2049 suggests.
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