Blade Runner (1982) The Ladd Company/Sci-Fi-Thriller RT: 118 minutes Rated R (strong violence, language, brief nudity) Director: Ridley Scott Screenplay: Hampton Fancher and David Peoples Music: Vangelis Cinematography: Jordan Cronenweth Release date: June 25, 1982 (US) Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, M. Emmett Walsh, Daryl Hannah, William Sanderson, Brion James, Joe Turkel, Joanna Cassidy, James Hong, Morgan Paull, Hy Pyke, Ben Astar. Box Office: $27M (US, 1982 release)
Rating: ****
I guess I should have expected to be disappointed by Blade Runner 2049 seeing that it’s a sequel to my all-time favorite sci-fi movie (next to 2001: A Space Odyssey). When the bar is as high as the one set by Ridley Scott in the original 1982 Blade Runner, even the very best filmmaker has his/her work cut out for him/her. Since I already reviewed the sequel, let’s turn our attention to the first movie.
In my not-at-all humble opinion, Blade Runner is absolute cinematic perfection. It took me a little while to fully appreciate it. When it first came out, I was 14 and incapable of seeing the full picture. It was partly because I hadn’t read the Philip K. Dick novel (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) on which it’s based and partly because I wasn’t familiar with the concept of film noir which factors heavily in the movie. I understood the basic story and the visuals blew me away, but I found the movie slow and rather depressing. This would be my introduction to dystopian sci-fi, a term I didn’t learn until I took a futuristic literature class in community college. It was also in this class that I first read Dick’s novel. I LOVED IT! It shed a lot of light on the movie’s themes. We watched the movie in class and that’s when it really clicked for me. For that day on, I was a big Blade Runner fan.
There have been four versions of Blade Runner over the years. There’s the original theatrical release, the International Cut with an extra minute of graphic violence, the Director’s Cut with Harrison Ford’s voiceover narration removed and a revised ending and the Final Cut with a number of touch-ups and edits (Scott considers it the definitive version of the movie). Everybody has their preferred version. Mine is the International Cut. It’s this version that forms the basis of my review.
Blade Runner is a hybrid of dystopian sci-fi, detective noir and Frankenstein with the notion of a human playing the role of Creator of life. Set in 2019, the story takes place in a futuristic Los Angeles filled with looming skyscrapers and overcrowded streets. Replicants, artificial beings created by the Tyrell Corporation, are outlawed on Earth. It is the job of a special police unit called “blade runners” to hunt down renegade replicants and “retire” (i.e. kill) them. Retired blade runner Rick Deckard (Ford, Star Wars) is forced back into action after four replicants make their way to L.A. They are Leon (James, 48 Hrs.), Zhora (Cassidy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit), Pris (Hannah, Splash) and their leader Roy Batty (Hauer, Nighthawks). A few words about replicants. They can pass for human in all but one respect; they’re unable to show empathy. These particular replicants are Nexus-6 models with a four-year life span, a fail-safe in case they start developing their own emotions.
Deckard meets with Tyrell (Turkel, The Shining) to administer an empathy test (the Voight-Kampff test) to a Nexus-6 model. Tyrell has him try it out on his assistant Rachael (Young, Dune) who, it turns out, is a Nexus-6 replicant. It takes Deckard longer than usual to determine this because Rachael believes she is human. She’s a little different than other models in that she has implanted memories of a childhood that never actually happened (at least not to her). While Deckard attempts to track down the replicants, Roy and the others want to meet with Tyrell. The only way they can accomplish this is through J.F. Sebastian (Sanderson, Black Moon Rising), a friend and gifted genetic designer who works closely with Tyrell. Meanwhile, Rachael escapes from Tyrell which makes her a target for retirement.
Some say that the storyline is rather thin and while that may be so, Blade Runner contains some pretty heavy themes and ideas. It explores the whole idea of humanity and what it means to be human. Empathy is an essential indicator of someone’s humanity. Scott juxtaposes them with unempathetic human characters to show how cold and impersonal society has become. It also has a great deal of religious symbolism such as Roy Batty’s similarity to Lucifer. He is a fallen angel (from an off-world colony) who’d rather reign in Hell (Earth) than serve in Heaven (off-world colony). It touches upon technology and the environment. Animals are all but extinct; most animals (like the owl at the Tyrell Building) are artificial. It’s almost always raining. It’s implied that industrial pollution has adversely affected the environment.
One of the coolest things about Blade Runner is how it incorporates elements of film noir into the narrative. Harrison Ford’s character is the hard-boiled detective with a questionable moral outlook. His voiceover narration (which I like) is right out of a 40s detective movie. Sean Young is the femme fatale. She dresses and wears her hair like a dame from the 40s. One of the people Deckard questions dresses like a Moroccan street vendor replete with fez; it’s evocative of Casablanca. It also borrows themes from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with Tyrell playing the role of God and the creation confronting (and ultimately destroying) his maker.
What I like most about Blade Runner are the visuals. I believe in giving credit where it’s due so let’s acknowledge the artistic geniuses behind the movie’s design- Lawrence G. Paull (production design), David Snyder (art director), Douglas Trumbull and Richard Yuricich (special effects) and cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth. To this day, Blade Runner is still the most awesome looking movie I’ve ever seen. Its vision of the future is reminiscent of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis with its use of miniatures and matte paintings. The look of 2019 L.A. is a mix of the past (old crumbling buildings, fire-belching smokestacks) and the future (flying cars, giant digital billboards). Scott makes excellent use of light and shadow. Details I find interesting are the heavy Japanese population and the ATARI building that keeps showing up in the background. The latter can only be a product of a future envisioned in 1982 when ATARI game consoles were all the rage.
The score by Vangelis is terrific. It’s one of my favorite movie scores. It’s just so beautiful. It really enhances the tone of the movie. At times, it’s synth-heavy (a nod to the future); other times, it sounds like something composed in the 40s (a nod to the past and the movie’s noir conventions). All together, Blade Runner resembles a beautiful nightmare. It’s gorgeous to look at, but it’s bleak at the same time. The acting is also tremendous. There’s an ongoing debate over whether Deckard is a replicant or not. Ford’s performance suggests that either theory could be correct. His character isn’t very expressive yet he falls for Rachael. Hauer is simply amazing as Roy Batty. I’d even say it’s the Dutch actor’s finest performance. He excels at playing villains- e.g. the terrorist Wulfgar in the previous year’s Nighthawks. His “tears in the rain” final speech is incredibly moving. Young is great as the femme fatale. Character actor Brion James makes an impact as Leon. Hannah is suitably sexy, agile and seductive as Pris. M. Emmett Walsh (Blood Simple), who plays Deckard’s commanding officer, always adds an extra level of cool to the movies he’s in.
I could go on and on about Blade Runner, but I think I better wrap it up. Simply put, it’s an outstanding film on several levels. It’s my favorite film of director Ridley Scott (Alien). He does such an amazing job. It’s intelligently written even if it’s not completely faithful to Dick’s novel. The writers left quite a few things out. You really need to read the book to fully comprehend the film. It moves at a slow, deliberate pace which I think is one of the main things that put people off Blade Runner is summer ’82. I’m certain many went in expecting Star Wars or a sci-fi version of Raiders of the Lost Ark, especially with Ford in the lead. It’s not a thrill-a-minute actioner. It’s a cerebral, contemplative piece that asks a lot of heavy questions. I think it’s absolutely brilliant! It was a movie ahead of its time. I’m glad that many now regard it (and rightfully so) as a classic. It took a few years but Blade Runner finally got the recognition it deserves. If you’ve never seen it, you need to fix that RIGHT NOW!
TRIVIA TIDBIT: The title Blade Runner actually comes from a dystopian future novel by Alan E. Nourse called The Bladerunner. In it, a blade runner is a trafficker of surgical instruments. Scott came across the title and liked it so much, he bought the title.
