Interesting note on names here I've noticed... Gosling's Blade Runner is called by a serial number beginning with: "K", and is referred to this letter for most of the film...
...In the major works of Franz Kafka, the Protagonist (usually lost in those famously nightmarish, apparently inescapable realities) is called "K", or "Joseph K", so naming the principle character here that way is seemingly an obvious allusion to those works.
....In addition, it is his personal hologram: "Joi" (Ana De Armas) who later renames him "Joe", although it could be possible that the allusion here is that she is actually calling him "Jo"... add the "I", and you have, of course: "Joi"... the indication being that she is essentially an avatar of his own "soul" (Even the billboard she appears on blinks up the "I" in her name).
I've watched this a few times now (more than is perhaps healthy! :), and it's totally won me over now...
....A great addition to the original Blade Runner idea.
However, one point in particular I think needs emphasising, is the performance by the actor who plays the "new born" android, who flops out of her synthetic "birth canal" on to the cold floor, before being examined, and hen dispatched by Wallace, is frickin' amazing!
Possibly the best piece of physical acting I can recall ever having seen!
She has no lines, is literally born, then dies, but captures that new born calf type of essence immaculately...flopping onto the slab, all gangly, shaky, and shivery, uncoordinated, and with the exact floppy, bewildered, unformed minded shock of birth that you see on new born creatures, whether in the farmyard or elsewhere. She absolutely captures that "new-ness" in the world to perfection.
Why is it so difficult to find out out who this actress is?
....Why did she not win heaps of awards for this performance?
.....Why is she, on the strength of this, not cast in everything you could get her in?
Her name should be in every conversation about this film, and every one that speaks of physical acting.
Rated 9/10>>Transfered from a comment made on Blu-Ray Disc<<
I took the plunge, and watched this t'other day.
...I was apprehensive, as Blade Runner is my favourite film of all time, and was a little heartbroken (and a bit angry) when they announced this was coming...
(I went to the cinema when it came out, and stood debating with myself before deciding I didn't want that kind of disappointment in my life - another F$%^^ing remake! / cash in / destruction of that which (I) love - and walking off)
But very pleasantly surprised... if it wasn't for the enormous baggage it carries of the first film, I might say this is a modern masterpiece (if it stood alone) - doesn't quite have the soul of the original, but it does have one all it's own, very minimalist performances which speak volumes (Gosling is very good at twitch acting at this level)
Nice twists on he original premise, and elements in the score which are wholly original, and quite startling - did I hear one of those Australian whirly wooden things on a string that Crocodile Dundee used to call out to the clan in the wilderness, a fair bit of throat singing, and the usual bleeps and squiggles.
I very soon forgot about the original for a time, and was absorbed in it.
Villeneuve can take his place as perhaps one of the best directors of our time, and certainly one of the best sci-fi directors (Arrival is brilliant!).
I thin even Philip K. Dick would be happy with this!