Blade Runner 2049

[rynling]

Blade Runner 2049 is 2 hours and 43 minutes long, and it drags. It could have been a nice clean two hours if all of the extraneous footage of the camera lingering on naked female bodies had been cut. Female head editors are relatively common in Hollywood cinema, and they have been known to trim ridiculous excesses like this, but the editor of this movie is, unfortunately, male.

(This editor, Joe Walker, also worked on Denis Villeneuve's movie from last year, Arrival, which was fairly decent, but back in 2013 he worked on 12 Years a Slave, which... Also could have used more judicious editing, I think. Like, do we really have to linger that long on shots of black women being raped and tortured? Do we really??)

I understand that a major theme of the posthumanist inquiry presented by the film is reproduction, specifically who is allowed to control reproduction, and so it would make sense for there to be a visual emphasis on female fertility. That being said, there's also a major emphasis on Ryan Gosling's sexual agency within a heterosexual economy of desire. He is propositioned three times, and he says "no" three times, and this is accepted without resistance or complaint by the female characters, none of whom are granted the ability to say "no" for themselves. Also, whereas most of the women who appear onscreen are all naked all the time, Ryan Gosling doesn't so much as roll up his shirt when he gets knifed in the stomach – which is weird, because if I had Ryan Gosling's body I would have my agent negotiate a clause into my contract that says the movie has to include at least one a scene where I'm naked and posing for the camera.

Basically there's a gross double standard, is what I'm saying.

Also, in this culturally mixed dystopian future, the signage and advertisements for the corporations that have ruined the world are all in fake Japanese, but just about everyone in the movie is white. Some people are Russian, which I guess is a nod to diversity, but in future Tokyo/LA there is not a single Asian or Hispanic person. The movie also contains a particularly egregious example of Idris Elba tokenism, wherein its one black character is a child slaver.

In conclusion, Robin Wright (who plays a grizzled senior lieutenant in the LAPD) is beautiful and perfect, and as far as I'm concerned the movie ends when she's killed by the sexy villainess, who is played by 34-year-old Dutch model and actress Sylvia Hoeks and who honestly I would love to shoot me in the face, it would be an honor.