10 Movies Released Way Too Late To Make Sense

It’s an unpopular opinion in film buff circles, but Blade Runner (1982) is not actually a particularly good film. Gorgeous production design and soundtrack aside, the film is poorly plotted with an unappealing, incompetent protagonist overshadowed by a charismatic superhuman antagonist and sexual politics rooted in 1950s noir.

It’s not a very successful movie either: despite multiple re-releases during Ridley Scott’s various attempts to find a decent definitive cut over the years, Blade Runner has only ever found a select audience of sci-fi nerds.

Blade Runner 2049 is set 30 years after the events of the first film, and presupposes that a worldwide cinema audience is familiar enough with the premise of a four-decade-old cult classic to sit through a bleak, humourless and overlong sequel. Spoiler alert: they were not. The film didn’t even come close to making back its combined budget.

Worse, Blade Runner 2049 echoes its predecessor’s blatant misogyny and style-over-substance approach. Aside from how evocative it all looks, only established fans of the first film are likely to find anything of real value here.

To be honest, how Denis Villeneuve cobbled together a rumoured $185 million production budget for a 35-years-too-late sequel to a movie that’s never made any money is probably a better story than whatever’s happening in the movie.

Still, at least Harrison Ford has managed to portray senior citizen versions of all three of his most famous roles now.