Blade Runner (1982)

reviewed by
Serdar Yegulalp


Blade Runner (1982)
A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp
(C) 1997 by Serdar Yegulalp

CAPSULE: The godfather of modern science fiction films earns every bit of its culthood, its influence, its longevity, and even its pretensions.

There is something very intimidating in the way BLADE RUNNER has so completely lionized the sphere of the imagination in sf, in movies, in culture, in futureology, in a whole heap of things that would previously not seemed to have much potential to inform each other. But they have. BLADE RUNNER is not just a movie -- and a remarkable one at that -- but a cultural reference point, a landmark.

When movies like CITIZEN KANE, 2001, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and GONE WITH THE WIND were released, they changed how movies of their kind -- and many other kinds -- were thought about, conceived, executed, and dealt with. BLADE RUNNER did the same, not only with sf movies in general, but with the whole *act* of looking into the future. The hokey glittering utopias of movies like LOGAN'S RUN had been replaced with a perpetually extended now, a world in which one layer of jury-rigging on top of another was "progress". This was what the future as we knew it *felt* like.

The plot is basic noir, given a techno-injection. Harrison Ford plays Rick Deckard, a "blade runner" -- a police assassin whose specialty is hunting down "replicants", or androids that have gone renegade. He retired, but is now being dragged back in for one last job that involves several extremely advanced and dangerous "skin jobs", as replicants are snidely termed. The irony of the replicants' plight is plain: the motto of the company that makes them is "More Human Than Human", but their inherent lack of dignity and their built-in obsolescence -- a calculated four-year life span -- renders them pitiful. Deckard has pity for them, and cannot own up to it. There is also Rachel, a replicant who is the prototype for the models he has been sent to destroy, who was given false memories as a way of making her more credibly human, and it works so well that Deckard finds himself drawn to her. And then there is Roy, the vicious but also angrily philosophical ringleader of the replicants, who rages against the dying of his light -- a noble enemy who has a lesson for Rick in the end.

Ford's acting is monotonous; deliberately so. He is playing a character, as we soon see, who either does not have emotions to begin with, or has systematically cut himself off from them. (In which case, what's the difference?) And in that light, the hokey narration that was slathered on top of the original release to "clarify" the movie's substance seems weirdly appropriate. The acting, both in his case and throughout the movie, works through the accumulation of details -- it's never any one thing, but everything: the way he says "Kiss me", the way he tries to drink and gets blood in his glass, the way he bluffs his way into an exotic dancer's dressing room.

And then there is the movie's look, which has been copied and slavishly imitated in comics, in other movies, books, advertising, and God knows what else. In other movies, we felt like we were looking at sets; BLADE RUNNER makes us feel like we're peeking *into* the future, it's so closed-ended, total, and convincing. The haunting Vangelis score makes the already-wide scope of the movie seem even broader, almost operatic -- especially in scenes like the one where Roy confronts his maker and doesn't like what he finds.

BLADE RUNNER had a difficult production history -- much of the budget and production value for the movie was supplied by the Shaw Brothers kung-fu filmmaking house -- and was critically rejected and commerically unsuccessful on its first release. Audiences who were used to Ford's Indiana Jones / Han Solo schtick were turned off by the brooding, introspective Rick Deckard. The brutal violence and overall atmosphere of gloom didn't help things either - and still make the movie overwhelming on first viewing.

In fact, BLADE RUNNER is a movie that demands being seen at least twice -- once to get the spectacle and shock value of the movie assimilated, and another time to let the story unwind and present itself. Beyond the look and feel, the story and theme of BLADE RUNNER show great promise of withstanding the test of time and making the film not only prophetic, but deep and true.

Four out of four hovercars -- a fifth, if at all possible.
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