5.Blade Runner 2049

I was skeptical about the film simply because having been a fan of the original. I was doubtful whether the new film will stand up to the first film.  Blade Runner may have shaped the future, but it’s easy to forget its past. The film is now universally accepted as a classic, Ridley Scott’s future-noir fantasy from 1982, widely dismissed in the beginning as an exercise in spectacular emptiness. It was only when Blade Runner was reconfigured via a 1992 Director’s Cut, and later Scott’s definitive Final Cut, that its masterpiece status was assured, compared to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Kubrick’s 2001. Architecturally, the production designs evoke Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, all angular lines and expressionist shadows.

This is the context for Blade Runner 2049, it was a tough act to follow, Ridley Scott’s original. Director Denis Villeneuve’s audacious sequel is really as good as the hype suggests, spectacular enough to win over new generations of viewers, yet deep enough to reassure diehard fans that their cherished memories haven’t been forgotten and betrayed. Villeneuve teases away at the enigmatic identity riddle at the centre of Scott’s movie, brilliantly sustaining the mystery of a blade runner’s true nature.