The Film (3.5/5)

    Blade Runner did not need a sequel, but it got one (I'm just glad it did not get a remake). Fortunately, Warner Brothers took the idea of a sequel quite seriously, and got one of the best auteur directors working in the mainstream of film today, Denis Villenueve, and had him turn his eyes on the property. They also got original screenwriter Hampton Fancher on the project as well, which helps connect the new material to the old in a more tonally accurate way.

    The new film takes place 30 years after the events of the original film. The Tyrell Replicants have rebelled in the time in between the original and now, and there was some sort of outage that caused records from prior to that time to have been deleted. Officer K (Ryan Gosling) is a modern Blade Runner whose job is take out renegade modern replicants produced by the Wallace Corporation run by Niander Wallace (Jared Leto).  Wallace's biggest goal is to hurry the production of replicants by having them reproduce naturally, he has been unsuccessful so far, but when K stumbles onto the corpse of a replicant that appears to have reproduced K finds himself trapped between the Wallace Corporation and the LAPD in his investigation in the case to find the child of the replicant parent.

    Blade Runner 2049 sets up an interesting premise for it's new Blade Runner to follow through that allows it revisit the original film, while not feeling beholden to the original entirely. This allows new viewers to hop into the world of Blade Runner without feeling overly confused by what they are seeing, and new fans to guess how the film is connecting to the original as certain revelations are being made.   The visuals created by Roger Deakins with Villenueve are truly stunning and help evolve the world of Blade Runner from the one we left behind 30 years ago. The performances across the board are quite brilliant with Gosling filling in the shoes of the modern Blade Runner perfectly for where Harrison Ford left in 1982, but with his own tics.  

I have heard some viewers refer to this as better than Blade Runner, and I would not go that far. It's a good film, but it is too overlong, and obviously due to the fact that Blade Runner has happened already a lot of its style comes from the earlier film, and so nothing in it will be as much of a revelation as Blade Runner would have been in 1982. Still I do think this film will reward many rewatches, and become a classic in its own right.

Audio/Video (5/5)

    I actually had to find another screen to watch the 4K at, but it looks magnificent.  The film is presented at 2:40:1 and looks marvelous. Colors pop, blacks are deep, textures look unreal, and and detail is stunning throughout.

Audio is Dolby Atmos with a True HD option. Everything sounded quite strong and dynamic throughout and dialogue with score came through crystal clear.

Extras (2.5/5)

    It's basically a few short films that set up the world of the film, and then some fluffy BTS stuff about designing and casting the film. Nothing here is too significant, but wait 20 years for the next format, and you'll be able to get it in some replica prop with 5 cuts of the film and a boat load of extras (I'm kidding).

Overall

   It isn't a necessary film, but it was interesting. The UHD looks and sounds quite good, and has a limited slate of extras. RECOMMENDED.