Blade Runner is an overrated film. There. I said it. Roll your eyes at me. Tell your computer screen how batshit crazy I am. Tell it that there’s no way you’ll ever check out anything Sevan Paris has ever written because–if this is what he thinks an overrated movie is–what the hell does he consider a GOOD movie to be? And then please continue.
It’s been twenty years since I’ve seen this movie. At the time, I think I considered it good quite simply because everybody else around me did. The other night, I noticed that HBO was going to pull it soon, so I thought … what the hey? It’s been a while. I’ll check it out.
Thirty minutes in, I could see–very easily–why the movie has such a visual influence on a lot of artists in a lot of different mediums. But beyond that, the movie–from a scene to scene perspective–just felt like a disjointed mess and very padded out. The music, probably trying to be both science fiction-y and noir-y, managed to just make me very aware of its presence. And jar me out of the film as a result.
Calling a film Blade Runner and then having very little action is a total bait and switch. And what little action the film does contain isn’t really initiated by Deckard. And it dang sure isn’t resolved by him. In fact, the climax is really just spent with Deckard waiting on the villain to die. I suppose you could argue the point of the story is Deckard’s journey, and the person he becomes at the end. But … really, he didn’t seem that different. He had fallen in love, sure (don’t get me started on the super-creepy make-out scene). And even though that’s a big life change for the dude–I’m not convinced it was a character change. I think the Deckard I saw at the beginning of the film would have been just as likely to fall for Rachel as the guy that got his fingers broken at the end … when he, y’know, was waiting on the bad guy to die.
Space Pulp #2: Menace of the Space Zombies on sale in December!
Comments