Let me first say a little something about immersion. Immersion for those unaware is yelping in fear when a friend taps your shoulder in the middle of 6th Sense, or following every sentence with an utterance of “Ooooh-Rah!” after spending more than a few minutes in any cinema with Tim Sizemore on screen. In my experience the feeling of immersion will make and break any film. If I had to choose one word to describe my experience of Blade Runner howeverI would have to say schizophrenic. For large portions of the film the atmosphere of the dystopian future Scott creates will grasp you to the extent the absence of distant siren will make you feel distinctly on edge. However, it is the other moments in the film that left me feeling baffled and disappointed. It seems to switch all too frequently between being a thriller and drama. Now, I am aware that a handful of genuinely good dramatic thrillers exist, but in aiming for both of these key genre’s Blade Runner appears to have missed both and instead the genre bullets have landed smack in the middle of what can only be described as “Hollywood”.
Maybe I am being too harsh on the film, I truly did enjoy it overall but with a plot and cast with such promise I expected so much more. The lack of immersion it seems can be stemmed back to the whole Final Cut scenario. From my limited background knowledge of the film I can only deduce that back on release day if we had popped down to cinema town and paid our thru’pence ha’penny to watch Blade Runner, we would have been treated to a film with a far more consistent feel (the original cut being a typical film noir detective thriller). I am a film lover who enjoys a consistently good script, soundtrack and ambience more than special effects but it appears in Scott’s attempt to touch up the latter of these things he decided to strip away the parts I would have much rather seen.
This review may seem overly critical and I apologise to all those who adore this film but it just doesn’t adhere to my weird but wonderful tastes.
Tags: blade runner, film, ridley scott
