Rated R

Directed by Ridley Scott

Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward Jame Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, Daryl Hannah

Heidi’s Illustrious Rating: 4.5 (One of the all-time best Sci-Fi’s every made)

Word of Warning: Violence against replicants.

After 26 years, this movie is still really good, especially the Final Cut. Release in 2007, the Final Cut is the version of Blade Runner  Ridley Scott would have liked to release in 1982. Along with additional scenes, the movie has been revamped and looks great; it doesn’t feel like an old 80’s flick. A young Harrison Ford plays Rick Deckard, a former police officer who belonged to an elite special force unit called Blade Runners. It is the year 2019, and the earth isn’t a very friendly place. We join Deckard in Los Angeles, a dark (literally and figuratively) futuristic version of the City of Angels. Deckard has recently resigned as a Blade Runner, but is being forced to do one more job.

Blade Runners are responsible for tracking down and eliminating (”retiring”) replicants who find their way to earth. Replicants are artificial humanoid life forms (think Data from Star Trek) originally created for use in dangerous jobs such as space exploration, space mining and soldiering. They are superior to humans in strength and agility. Because the replicants become self-aware over time, a fail-safe mechanism has been programmed into their software that turns them off after four years (in other words, replicants only have a four-year “life span”).

An unskilled person cannot differentiate between a real human and a replicant and this is why Blade Runners are utilized.When we join Deckard in L.A. replicants have been banned from earth, but four have made it back by hijacking a shuttle and killing all the humans on board. 

The story takes the viewer on an eerie journey through futuristic L.A.; cars fly, brilliant scientists work undercover from street kiosks, dancers perform with replicant animals and street gangs ride around on bicycles. We meet a devious and genius inventor and his beautiful assistant and a scientist who lives in an empty warehouse and builds himself friends. 

If you haven’t seen Blade Runner, or haven’t yet seen the Final Cut, I highly recommend this movie. With the new refurbishments to the film, you’ll forget you’re watching a 26 year old movie. The themes have since been explored in dozens of other films, but Blade Runner explored these questions first. It remains as one of the all-time great science fiction films every made.