Blade Runner was arguably the first movie to make realistic Sci-fi a feasible and even familiar film genre. While there have been several famous sci-fi movies that relied more on creative ideas and weird scenarios than its actual story, and stuff like Star Wars was more fantasy related, Blade Runner influenced several other sci-fi films to create that unique blend of futuristic and reality that became much more popular as the years went on. This makes it even stranger when its realized that Blade Runner wasn’t always a beloved film. Set in the futuristic period of 2019, the world has given birth to a very progress AI that can mirror humanity, creating humanoid machines of death known as replicants. Once any replicant is no longer needed, they are permanently ‘retired’ by ‘Blade Runners’. One such blade runner, Deckard (played by Harrison Ford), is tasked with taking down a rogue group of replicants led by a perfected replicant model known as Roy Batty (played by Rutger Hauer). For a movie that is often regarded as a sci-fi favorite, critics didn’t take to it to begin with. The movie had a ton of different versions released after the initial film under-performed and was polarizing to critics. Despite this, the film earned itself a cult following and has even been regarded by some to be one of the best sci-fi movies of all time. The movie suffers a lot of important issues that make it work as an interesting noir film and a creative sci-fi film though, so its important to find out what works for some and doesn’t for others?

The story is based on the 1968 Phillip K Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The story featured a lot of elements that functioned well within the realms of science fiction with the replicant humans operating as enemies in a futuristic world, but also featured enough police procedural, philosophical themes and film noir tropes to make it more suited for other genres within the realms of cinema. Making the movie a mixture of sci fi and film noir allowed the movie to earn itself a specific style, one that doesn’t feel like a generic outing for either individual genre. However, these two genres don’t balance themselves out very effectively, which proves troublesome for the movie. The sci-fi genre loves focusing on creative otherworldly ideas and environments or goofily fun or threatening enemies, while the film noir is more focused on harsh atmosphere, gritty unforgiving realism, and flawed morally grey individuals. This combo feels like it combines the elements that wouldn’t work in making an engaging film. The pace is horribly slow and uneventful; resulting in only the last act feeling like it shows anything of substance while the rest of the movie is mostly philosophical symbolism and slow scenes of people talking. Sci-fi is good at worlds and creatures, but neither of those elements get a lot of focus in this movie, and the film noir is best at intricate plans and oppressive atmosphere, which the movie doesn’t really take that much advantage of either. The ideas and concepts for this world are creative and would work great on a visual medium, but the structure behind those ideas are so paper-thin and horribly placed together that it loses itself after its opening act. The middle is where its really dull, becomes repetitive and fails to introduce anything that is either relevant to the story or ties into anything at the end.

Another thing that struggles to get people interested in the movie’s weak narrative is the lack of interesting characters throughout. This isn’t to say that there aren’t some great ideas for characters, its that they aren’t really delved into much outside of their initial concepts. Transferring a book into a movie is difficult as it doesn’t allow the same amount of time and detail required for certain characters to be fleshed out, but a compromise needs to be met in order for them to be engaging for the viewers. If the characters aren’t connectable in a story, the themes and concepts don’t hit as strong because they aren’t invested in the people involved. The lead is your very basic beaten cop cliché without much added onto it and this means that a decent actor like Harrison Ford can’t really give the role anything special or memorable to the role. Sean Young as a woman who suspects herself to be a replicant starts off pretty interesting but gets completely forgotten about halfway through the movie and doesn’t do anything come the films conclusion. The only really meaty role is left to the villain, Rutger Hauer as the bad guy is the only character in the movie with a clear goal, sense of urgency and purpose, and the only one with any sense of personality. There is an interesting concept around the replicants that makes them more human than the actual humans themselves, but that comparison is never truly felt because it never feels like a major element of the story. Regardless, his scenes actually do keep you invested and his performance in the climax is legitimately scary, but otherwise none of the characters in the movie are really anything that special despite the fact that the acting overall is pretty good.

The visual design of the movie is one of the elements that people connected with the most, mostly because it is actually a well-balanced visual design that is creative but not over the top. The style is grounded enough that it feels like a liveable world, yet it features enough futuristic elements and neon colors to not be too dull and bland looking. It maybe could have used more striking contrasting colors as it eventually just settles for deep blue and rain, but otherwise it isn’t an ugly movie to look at. The movie was also criticized for its lack of action in a set-up that feels tailor made for an action movie. This is really ironic as later big budget action movies were based on Phillip K Dick’s work, like Total Recall and Minority Report.  Those movies have dystopian settings, heavy symbolism, and philosophical themes, but their fast-paced action-oriented elements are arguably what helped keep people engaged. This isn’t to say that a movie can’t be slow and thoughtful with these elements, but the slow moments need to lead to something important. Instead the movie uses these segments to reference elements that aren’t easy to spot unless your looking, and if you aren’t paying attention regardless, the last act makes a lot of those scenes pointless anyway.

Its hard to fully comprehend what draws people in so strongly to this movie. Overall, its honestly a pretty boring story-less drawn-out movie with more visual bite than substance. It has some elements that feel like they could be utilized in creative visual ways and could lead to thought-provoking commentary and themes, but they serve little in the overall story and this is ironic as they take time away from building the world or the characters, both of which aren’t very interesting. It led to several other interesting movies that tackled similar themes with better worlds and characters, and even theoretically created the cinematic genre of sci-fi, but a starting point doesn’t always have to be good. More of an off-the-walls experimental flick as opposed to an engaging sit, its hard to judge whether or not you’ll get into it, it really does rely on what the individual is into. If there’s anything that this movie has shown us, its that a shirtless Rutger Hauer skipping through a decrepit building is one of the most unsettling things in cinema history. Check it out and decide for yourself whether or not this formula should have been one to replicate.