The director’s keenness to highlight the emotional depth of the main character K, perfectly played by the talented Ryan Gosling, should also be noted. And yet, something is missing. Something just isn’t right and I think the scenario is partly to blame. The suspense seems too easy to crack, the truth too obvious. The movie pretends to give us its ending multiple times during its last 40 minutes and the actual ending is probably the least convincing of all of them. Certain characters seem hollow and are just not that interesting (Jared Leto delivers a poor performance in the role of the villain, far from the diabolical Roy Batty from the first movie) while other characters are risky bets that end up being great even though, once again, we know too much too soon. Too many storylines are started without being picked up later and consequently the viewer is left with a real feeling of frustration when the credits roll.

 

Neither a masterpiece nor an unworthy sequel Blade Runner 2049 deserves the title of homage more than an actual sequel in my opinion. References here and there allow us to delve back into this very dark and gloomy universe but the movie unfortunately falls back on clichés far too often and doesn’t succeed in replicating the very unique atmosphere the first movie had managed to create.

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Written by Vincent. 

Translated by Emma.