Originally Reviewed
Sunday January 20, 2008
I've heard a lot of good things about Blade Runner, being a huge fan of director Ridley Scott's more recent work and I consider Harrison Ford one of the best actors of our time, its a wonder I've never gotten around to watching this before. Now after viewing it I wonder if I'll ever watch it again. Harrison Ford says Blade Runner is one of the most frustrating films he'd ever worked on, and the numerous re-releases of this film in different forms surely confirms that thought. Blade Runner was a box office disappointment when it was released, yet 25 years later it's looked at as one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. Personally, I found the film quite dull... maybe I watched the wrong version.
Harrison Ford plays Rick Deckard, an officer of the Blade Runner unit, a group of bounty hunters assigned to terminate "replicants" or clones. The production of clones became illegal after a massive clone mutiny on an off world colony led to a bloody massacre. Deckard is preparing to retire from the force but is assigned one final mission. His mission is to terminate a group of rouge clones who arrived on Earth from the colony.
The human dilemma about the value of life (mainly clones) is an interesting topic for a film but it's carried out in a way that was completely wanders around for two hours in an attempt to get some sort of message across. Visually the film is an achievement for it's time, but that's about the highest praise I can give it, the story left me bored and uninterested, and the characters were dry and emotionless adding to the monotony. I kept watching only for a glimmer of excitement, a morsel of action, something to prove to me this film was worth the hype, but the long periods of silence, a muddled storyline and mediocre acting left me highly disappointed, even the few short action scenes left me unimpressed. By far my least favorite Ridley Scott film and Harrison Ford puts forth a performance that's so unemotional and dry that it's worth missing. Cult classic maybe, but one of the best science fiction films of all time... hardly.
5/10
I love this. It's probably in my top 10, if not then only just outside it. I can't say I've ever felt that it's slow when I've watched it, although there are admitedly slow moments, but I don't remember thinking there were any more than your average film. In all honestly I also think you've watched the best version of it! Rutger Hauer's speech at the end is one of my favourite moments in cinema.
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