No choice, huh?---Rick Deckard

In a futuristic Los Angeles, Blade Runner Rick (Harrison Ford) reluctantly agrees to find and terminate four rogue replicants (androids) who killed his ex-partner.  When he appears at the Tyrell Corporation, the company behind the replicants, he is asked to test Rachael (Sean Young), an advanced model seemingly with personal memories.  

The fugitives, meanwhile, are looking for a designer who created them with their own agenda in mind.  What do they want?  And will Rick be able to do his job?

This is a strange duck of a movie, combining cyberpunk science fiction with film noir.  Thanks to the direction of Ridley Scott, it largely works.  The visuals, although made in 1982, are impressive; the billboards come to life while hover cars fly through the skies.  

But it's not just visual woo.   The film reflects on what it's like to be human…it would make a good doubleheader with the anime Ghost in the Shell (1995).  The cast works well together, particularly Rutger Hauer as the “head” replicant.  There's a speech towards the end that will make you think.

I do wish Scott spent more time giving the human characters as much feeling and variety as the android ones.  One doesn't learn a lot about Deckard at the film's end than they do going in.  The only major thing I remember is that Gaff (Edward James Olmos) liked creating origami from paper and placing it in various locations.  That's not development.  That's a quirk.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut is a solid film that will draw you into its world.  With some time spent on making the humans as interesting as the replicants, it could have been a very good one.

PS:  The differences between the final cut and the original one are kind of minor.  I appreciated the opening scroll more than hearing Deckard's thoughts via narration.  The unicorn sequence was nice to look at, but didn't do much for me.  And the ending is different.

Grade:  B