In all my years on this planet, I’ve missed out on quite a few classics that everyone else has seen and can’t believe I haven’t. It was never a priority for me to see movies like Blade Runner (1982), especially because it seemed like a nerdy film that I would be slagged for watching. When the opportunity arose to watch Blade Runner and review it, I couldn’t resist the chance to give my opinion on the well known classic.
From the opening scene, I felt a strange familiarity. The film echoes Star Wars; a mish-mash of cultures in a futuristic world where everyone drives flying cars. The handsome face of Harrison Ford definitely contributes to my liking of the film. The story follows Deckard (Ford), a human bounty hunter who attempts to recover a rogue replicant, or android. The idea of A.I. becoming so advanced that it can pass something similar to the Turing Test is nowhere near an original concept in the almost forty years since the film’s initial release, but even still, Blade Runner constructs this narrative into a more believable story then most new titles. The film follows Deckard through this futuristic society on his quest to track down a rogue unit. Not only is the story great, the cinematography is amazing, with shots that would still hold up in today's industry. The audio quality isn't the best, but I feel it adds to the overall aesthetic.
The film actually managed to correctly predict some futuristic elements that have been developed today; voice recognition and control is becoming a massive area of development for technology with the likes of Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa becoming more advanced with every update, and as such, Blade Runner remains relevant in contemporary society.
Blade Runner certainly lives up to the hype; particularly, the ending of the Directors cut, released at a later date of 1992, made me go back to a couple of scenes and re-analyse them. I loved the ambiguity of the ending, and the small details in the film hinting that Deckard himself is a replicant. Re-watching some key scenes in the film and looking at the wording of some of the lines like “You’ve done a man’s job, sir,” makes the theory more believable, as well as making the character of Deckard more realistic. Furthermore, Deckard repeatedly takes beatings from the replicants, who are meant to be much stronger than humans; all of which ultimately constructs the film’s wonderfully ambiguous conclusion.
Overall, I loved the film, with its futuristic aesthetic, its talented actors and it’s amazing cinematography. The concept of the film is amazing, and while neither the graphics or sound quality have really stood the test of time, I can understand why the film has gathered such a following. I would definitely recommend giving it a watch if, like me, you haven’t seen it before.