fragmentary

How did Blade Runner ever come to be considered a science fiction classic?I realize it was made in the early 80’s, so I’m willing to look past the garish soundtrack and laughable attempts at futuristic technology and architecture. And I understand that showing seas of blinking lights and giant animated billboards likely had more impact before that kind of thing was commonplace.

But none of that excuses the film from being an aimless, lumbering morass of poorly shot scenes populated with dimensionless cut-outs in place of characters who give each other long, expressionless stares in place of exchanging lines of dialog (let alone actually acting). It repeatedly touches on ideas about identity and the nature of humanity that could be really interesting to explore, but unfortunately it only shoulders past them without so much as muttering “excuse me” as it plods inexorably towards nowhere in particular. The romantic subplot that seems like it’s probably supposed to be a key part of what’s supposed to pass for the plot is awkwardly introduced, and never really gets developed beyond a sex scene that might actually be rape if you squint a little, and a sudden and baffling declaration of love in the end. Though the movie does actually spend some time on the two characters together, the utter lack of chemistry (which might relate to the utter lack of personalities) makes this the most wooden attempt at romance I’ve seen since Hayden Christianson deadpanned his way into Natalie Portman’s pants in Attack of the Clones.

Seriously, I don’t think I can come up with a single good thing to say about this movie. It wasn’t even short. That was a full two hours of my life that I’ll never get back.

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