Shouting Grounds

Another new review topic, a brainfart of our man Redscape called “Why you keep bringin’ up old shit?”. We intend to use this category to review old movies, games, music, etc. And my old I mean ‘relatively accepted as in the past’. Spoilers are mute because we’re going to assume that you’ve either seen, read, played, heard, etc…what we’re talking about.

Blade Runner – The Final Cut

So I’ve finally made it COMPLETELY through Blade Runner without falling asleep. My previous attempts numbered (3), each time just making it past the point where Edward James Almost makes his strangely asian-speaking debut. And while this is “Why you keep bringin’ up old shit?”, I am reviewing Ridley Scott’s “Final Cut” of the movie, just because if I’m gonna watch the damned thing might as well be the ulti-version.

I gotta say, it’s great to see a young and healthy Harrison Ford in a movie. One of the reasons that I’m holding my enthusiasm for Indy IV is because of his age. It was also good to see a good old classic 80′s representation of the future, just gives you that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. This movie starts out like it’s going to go 2001 style, extremely slow shots with Space-Mountain music that lull you to sleep…and then some asshole shoots a repub through a wall in one of the better over-the-top handgun-blasts I can remember. The rest of the movie ebbs and flows from slow 80′s-scifi pace to action movie pace, never quite slowing enough to lose you but never going over the top.

This vision of the future has been played before, although when it was new it might have been original. LA’s a huge city with enormous skyscrapers and monolithic structures built over the husk of the old city. There are tons of asian influences, no doubt when we were sure Japan would buy up the country. It’s dreary, dirty looking and full of smog and rain. Deckard’s (Harrison Ford) apartment looks like a cabin on a spaceship and is on the 97th floor of somekind of superbuilding. Everyone seems grimy, sweaty and tired of life. A great outlook.

In any event, I’m not gonna run down the whole jist of the story. Suffice it to say there’s some ‘Replicants’ (very-human looking androids) running around looking for someone to tell them how to live longer than four years, and Deckard’s job is to race after them and shoot them with his burpgun all the while giving that trademark Harrison Ford what’s-going-on look. I’m sure there’s a deeper meaning here, but I just watched the movie and haven’t had decades to argue it with my buds. The rest of the cast is pretty good, nobody was too shitty. Meh.

All in all, not a bad movie. I’m glad to have finally seen it, but I don’t think I’ll watch it again, at least not for a long time.

Arousal Scale – Magic John Stone for Blade Runner – A Magic John Bone

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Film review, Movies, Why You Keep Bringin' Up Old Shit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.