Blade Runner 2049 Review

Deakins finally won for this and the case makes itself: irradiated Las Vegas rendered in monochrome orange, the shifting water-light on the walls of Wallace's chamber, vast concrete negative space that makes every human figure look provisional. It is a film composed rather than merely shot, and Villeneuve's patience gives each image room to land. The Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch score is a physical event in a good room.

Ryan Gosling plays K as a machine discovering it might have a self, which asks him to underplay for two and a half hours; Ana de Armas's Joi and Sylvia Hoeks's Luv supply the livelier presences. The problem is narrative economy: the mystery advances largely by K being told things, the Deckard reunion arrives late enough to feel obligatory, and an entire replicant rebellion is introduced and abandoned inside ten minutes. As design and photography it has no equal in modern studio filmmaking. As a story it is a walk rather than a chase.