New Release! Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

No Spoilers (have no fear)

The movie's titular "blade runner," K, on the job in the big
city. There are plenty of scenes which revive the feel of the
worn-down, tech-opolis displayed in the original.

Director: Denis Villeneuve

An amazing piece of dystopian, speculative sci-fi cinema which I feel is even better than the classic original.

In the original 1982 Blade Runner (I did a very long and thorough review of it here), we had a story of Richard Deckard, a "blade runner" in the year 2019 who tracked and eliminated (known as "retiring") rogue synthetic humans, which are known as "replicants." By that movie's end, Deckard had begun changing his mind on whether there was really much difference between humans and replicants. He even falls in love with a very advanced replicant, Rachel, and escapes the authorities with her.

The new movie takes place, as the title suggests, thirty years after Deckard and Rachel's disappearance. In the thirty years after, the world has apparently suffered a few more trying episodes, including several replicant uprisings, some sort of massive blackout, and a near-famine. A reclusive and enigmatic genius, Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), was responsible for dealing with several of these crises, partly by taking over replicant production and ensuring that they would no longer develop wills of their own. To this purpose, blade runners still exist, whose job it is to track down the few remaining, older-model replicants still at large. The story follows one such blade runner, "K" (Ryan Gosling), who finds himself pulled into a larger battle between a secretive revolutionary group of replicants and the cosmically ambitious Niander Wallace. As he is drawn deeper into this conflict, K's questions about his own identity and purpose grow more troubling and unclear.

This movie lived up to my rather high expectations, though I am not terribly surprised that it had an underwhelming showing at the box office in its opening weekend. It captures a great deal of what made the original so revolutionary but also challenging, while actually enhancing it in many ways. At the heart of what made both so strong is that they perfectly represent the confounding, fascinating, and even frightening questions which emerge when one speculates about how technology does and would possibly impact us as it develops. This is what made author Philip K. Dick, responsible for the source novel, such a brilliant mind. Both Ridley Scott and Denis Villeneuve realized this and placed some of Dick's ideas right at the heart of their movies. But where the surface plot of Scott's original movie was rather simple - a detective trying to track down and eliminate a few rogue cyborgs - Villeneuve offers a more complex journey that touches on even heavier existential themes. This includes notions about self identity, one's greater purpose, and exactly how one is narrating his or her own life. Blade Runner 2049 is cerebral sci-fi at its best.

Inside the offices of the science genius Niander Wallace. This
is just one of many stunning sets which reflect the mental
states or situations of those who dwell in them.

If the movie is so good at these things, why was there a lackluster turnout on opening weekend, despite glowing reviews and a fairly ubiquitous advertising campaign? Hard to say for absolute certain, but it may not have helped its wider appeal that the film is not exactly an action-packed thrill-ride. While the original certainly has its slower, more meditative moments, it never goes more than about ten minutes without a fight of some sort, including a tense pursuit and battle during its twenty-minute climax. While 2049 does have several action sequences, all done extremely well, they are fewer and further between than the original. Anybody showing up to the theater hoping to get a J.J. Abrams-style, Star Wars/Star Trek reboot, action extravaganza was probably not going to be entertained by this movie. In fact, I heard a couple commenting as such as I left the theater with my wife. They were talking about how they wanted "something to happen" for nearly the entire movie. If these viewers general sentiment was reflective of the whole and they communicated it to others, than maybe many people decided to give it a pass. For my money, though, I thought the action scenes were handled well and used efficiently. There is one scene during a penultimate fight that I thought dragged on a bit, but this was the only such case.

Any fan of the original is likely to cite the mood and atmosphere created by the visuals and music score. The sequel makes sure to maintain some very welcome coherence with those aesthetic qualities and even update them brilliantly. With a sizable budget at his fingertips, Villeneuve was able to get the beautifully dark blend of noir and cyberpunk dystopia which Ridley Scott created back in 1982. He even goes beyond it, sending the story to several environments outside of the shadow-shrouded and rain-soaked metropolis where the original completely takes place. These evocative and impressive settings outside of the city help give this sequel an effectively episodic feel. And the music pulls off a similar trick, reviving much of the meditative and synthetic tones of the iconic Evangelis score, while adding some harder-hitting industrial sounds which can reflect the cognitive dissonance of the protagonist.

This movie's stayed embedded in my mind since I watched it three nights ago, and I will likely try to catch it on an IMAX screen while it still lasts there. It does sadden me that it hasn't done terribly well here in the U.S., as I would have hoped that there were still an audience for stunning, mentally stimulating science-fiction. I do hope that it perhaps has legs and that more people give it a chance, maybe seeing it for the incredible movie it is.

Retro Duo: Boy (2011); Enemy (2013)

Boy (2011)

The titular Boy, with his flighty but artistic brother Rocky
tagging along. Boy's T-shirt puts on display his love of pop
culture of the 1980s, when the story takes place.

Director: Taika Waititi

A brilliant early feature film from New Zealand native son, Taika Waititi.

I picked this one up on the recommendation of a Kiwi friend of mine, after I had told him just how much my wife and I had enjoyed Waititi's recent film Hunt for the Wilderpeople. This friend actually stated that he enjoyed Boy even more, and I can now see why. The movie tells the story of the titular Boy, an 11-year old native Maori growing up in rural New Zealand in 1984. Like most of his family, friends, and those around him, Boy is obsessed with American pop culture, especially Michael Jackson. Such pastimes help him get through a rather tough life taking care of his several siblings, as his mother has long since passed away and his father has been in prison for several years. Boy's life takes a wild change when his father Alamein (Taika Waititi) is released from prison and turns up to resume his role as Boy's father. The problem is that Alamein is essentially a 30-year old adolescent even more obsessed with 1980s pop aesthetic and machismo than the local pre-teens.

Not unlike Waititi's later Wilderpeople, Boy does an excellent job of blending the quirky humor endemic to the region with some truly heartfelt examination of relationships between people. Yes, the surface makes many of the characters seem almost cartoonishly goofy at times, but the motivations and impulses behind their buffoonery have a genuine feel. Boy's adulation of his criminally immature father makes all the sense in the world for a motherless kid who is desperate for a father figure. And both his and his father's actions are, while laughably silly at times, do reflect relationship dynamics that feel authentic. In certain ways, there is a similarity to the movies of Wes Anderson, whose meticulous aesthetic and peculiar humor are just window dressing on what are usually touching relationship troubles between family members. Waititi achieves much the same effect, including some of the same humorous tone as Anderson but utilizing a look much more his own and that of his native New Zealand.

This is an easy movie to recommend. Only those with a low tolerance for quirky films would have any great problems with this one. It's a brilliant blend of humor, heart, and region that was a pleasure to watch.

Adam and Anthony's meetings are far from the joyful
"separated at birth" kinds of reunions that one might hope for.
Rather, their dual existences suggests far grander and darker
things about the world around them and their perceptions.

Enemy (2013)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Intense. Menacing. Puzzling. Bizarre in a way that would probably make David Lynch proud. Enemy was not exactly what I expected from the talented director of Sicario and Arrival. But it is quite good.

The movie follows Adam, a college professor who seems to be going through the motions of his life with limited engagement or passion. This includes his job and his sexual relationship with what seems to be a relatively casual girlfriend. One day, Adam is watching a movie and sees an actor who looks exactly like him. Overcome by curiosity, Adam tracks down the actor, Anthony, and tries to make contact with him. Once the two come into contact, things become stranger and stranger for the both of them, and the very question of their being separate people starts coming into question. Sprinkled through the movie in a handful of different scenes are strange sequences involving spiders, sex, or a combination of both. At the story's end, only one of the two "twins" is left alive, although his identity is still in question, as is his perception of the reality around him.

I'm still trying to figure this film out, several weeks after I watched it. The fact that I am still immensely impressed by it and may watch it again, despite its disturbing tale and imagery, speaks to me of a richness that is all too rare in movies. The tale of Adam and Anthony can probably be interpreted in countless ways (and I've already looked up a few very solid, highly fascinating theories), and they are all intellectually stimulating. Some touch on themes of masculinity, while others on the notion of being an unwitting puppet under a totalitarian system. And there are certainly plenty of others. As tricky as it can be to arrive at a clear, definite explanation for the surreal elements of the story, it is quite clear that the writers and director Denis Villeneuve were expressing a fantastic and disturbing vision. It is not unlike certain films of the aforementioned David Lynch, perhaps most notably Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive, wherein questions of identity and connection can abound but the sense of a cohesive artistic work still runs through the work.

Now that I've seen several of Villeneuve's movies, I'm all in with him. Like one of my other favorite modern directors, Darren Aronofsky, he tackles movies on vastly different but challenging themes and tones, and he does it with an amazing knack for visual and narrative artistry. I'm immensely excited about his upcoming Bladerunner: 2047, and whatever else he decides to helm after that. As for Enemy, it won't be to everyone's tastes, to be sure, given the dark mood and rather disturbing suggestions about relationships, identity, and society. But for those willing to delve into such places, this is a warped trip worth taking.