Blade Runner is easily one of the most influential films ever made.  It’s glistening metropolis backdrop and production design have been copied (sorry, lifted) over and over again in everything from Dark City to the anime classic Akira.  The director of Ghost in the Shell (the anime film that influenced The Matrix) said in an interview that its one of his biggest influences, the list goes on and on.  In Ghost in the Shell:  Innocence androids (or replicants) wax poetic about what it means to be man or machine.   The lead character is tracking pleasure droids run amok.  Darryl Hannah plays such a replicant in Blade Runner.  Blade Runner comes to the big screen (and on DVD on December 18th) looking better than ever.  Most of the heavy lifting was done by the much-improved director’s cut and this final cut gives the classic one final face-lift. 

Blade Runner takes place in 2019 where  a replicant hunter (known as a blade runner) is called out of retirement to “retire” (aka terminate) a group of humanoid androids who escaped from a mining colony and are on earth.  The replicants are lead by Roy Batty (a memorable and insane….replicants can be insane too! Rutger Hauer) who has all the best lines and gives the sometimes slow-paced film most of its acting juice.  Harrison Ford is able to be sardonic without looking and sounding bored (like he does in recent films) as the blade runner Rick Deckard and Edward James Olmos lends support as a quirky cop who enjoys making origami unicorns in his spare time.  Sean Young plays Rachel, the replicant that Deckard begins to find himself having feelings for and Daryl Hannah is the pleasure replicant who enjoys backflipping and attempting to murder people by strangling them with her legs.  

Director Ridley Scott shaved a few minutes off the runtime and the film looks and sounds better than ever.  The timeless new-age electronic score from Vangelis is also stunning and sounds terrific on a big screen.  

The final cut of Blade Runner is well worth seeing.  It’s one of the most imitated science fiction films ever made.  This final cut has the same strengths (great visuals, unicorn dream, deleted narration, removed phony happy ending) and weaknesses (slow pace, sometimes rushed narrative) as Ridley Scott’s director’s cut of the film.   Unlike Star Wars director George Lucas though,  Scott resisted the temptation to add “improve” the film by adding lots of gaudy CGI and attempt to ruin his film.  Blade Runner will stand the test of time and be around for years to come while the imitators will be lost in time like tears in rain.

 Film Grade: A-

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