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Blade Runner (1982)

Adam’s rating: ★★½  (out of 5)

Director: Ridley Scott

Rated: R. 117 min.

Not on AFI 100

No. 97 on AFI 100 reissue

No. 116 on IMDB Top 250

Starring: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer,
Sean Young, Edward James Olmos,
Daryl Hannah, William Sanderson

"Blade Runner": No. 97 on AFI 100 (2008);
No. 116 on IMDB Top 250
 

This is one of those movies I didn’t really love, but I didn’t really hate. While I understand the film’s importance in the entire genre of sci-fi movies, I didn’t feel that the acting or the story was the quality it could have been.

The film falls into the archetypical sci-fi film: humans interacting with a machine (whether it’s a computer, droid, robot or human-like droid, in this case called a replicant) that goes rogue and proves that it has a mind and will of its own.

Basically, you have a group of human replicants that decide to leave whatever planet they are on doing work and come to Earth.

There is a test administered to one of these rogue replicants in order to decipher whether or not he’s human and when he realizes he’s going to be found out, he kills the human tester. Then, the shit hits the fan and Harrison Ford’s character has to track these replicants down and as the movie drags on, he eventually takes them out and bla bla bla and as he takes down all the evil replicants he falls in love with one of the replicants (depending on which version of the movie you saw) who is more human and knows how to beat the test and who knows how they had their little half-breed human/replicant babies?

The story is a out there – but then what science fiction story isn’t? Technologically speaking, the movie is pretty cool for its time. (In fairness, it has to be judged by 1982 standards, despite the fact that there are about 27,000 different versions of this movie floating around every time technology updates and Ridley Scott or whomever wants to make a few more bucks off of this cash cow.)

Overall, though, I feel that the director (Ridley Scott) has done better. Quite possibly with “Alien”? But definitely with “Gladiator.” What helps this film’s cause is the name recognition of Harrison Ford – despite the fact that this really is far from his best role. Coming off of two roles as Han Solo in “Star Wars” and “Empire Strikes Back” and then Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” before he would reprise Han in “Return of the Jedi” and Indy in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” this is like having turkey burger when you’re used to eating sirloin.

I more or less felt like I was watching this film simply because it’s on a list I’m trying to complete. And I wasn’t extremely impressed with it as I was films that preceded it (“Alien,” “2001,” “Planet of the Apes”).