THURSDAY NIGHT REVIEW OF BLADE RUNNER 2049

Year: 2016

There were actually defenders of INDIANA JONES AND THE CRYSTAL SKULL, saying the computerized monkeys and the nuked refrigerator (that just happened to land in the radiation safety zone) were par for the course... "After all, in the other movies he climbed under a truck and..." so on and so forth: But when something looks and feels legit, it's completely plausible for the viewer...

Like in the original BLADE RUNNER where an opiate haze shrouds a corporate, commercialized yet doomed, dystopian future where rain falls on flying-cars jetting through an eternal night sky of bleak neon, resembling Shanghai in an arcade purgatory: Yet all this visual glory served as a backdrop for the job of Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard, a Cop/Bounty Hunter Assassin aka "Blade Runner," whose assignment was to find and "retire" five Replicants (androids) that are "More Human Than Human." Most have already seen the classic 1982 science fiction Film Noir directed by Ridley Scott, and anyone defending this sequel will probably say, "Well the first one is long and slow too..."

BoreScore: *1/2

Yeah, sure... Slow like CHINATOWN, with a purpose and destination — while BLADE RUNNER 2049 has its new youngish Runner...  played by a sleepy-eyed Ryan Gosling, whose slim shoulders get lost in the signature manly cop jacket... trudging around without a mission interesting enough to allow the viewer a break from the navel-gazing existentialism, which was also part of the original...

Only this time, that's just about all there is: Save for random scraps that occur few and far, far, far between, leaving the audience to wait, wait and wait some more during snail-paced treks through a murky CGI imitation of the original's groundbreaking special effects. Meanwhile, the side-characters (holograms or robotics) are corny beyond belief: Even a nifty twist-middle wakeup-call quickly comes to nothing: So then, can Harrison Ford pick up the pace and make things whole again. Well he answer is... When in Rome... And he's as dull as the Romans...