20 Best Sci-Fi Films Of The 21st Century
18. Bladerunner 2049
It's better than the original. There, we said it, and no, it wasn't easy to say.
The marketing team behind Blade Runner 2049 did a spectacular job misleading all of us. They obviously knew exactly how all the pretentious Blade Runner nerds would react to the news of a sequel. Also how we'd react to Ryan Gosling being one of the leads. So what did they do? they completely trolled us with the initial trailer. How many of you saw that and were furious that it looked like yet another 'Ryan Gosling saves the world' action films? Yeah, exactly, because that's what they wanted. And it worked.
What we got instead was precisely what Blade Runner deserved in a sequel. Aesthetically speaking, it was stunning - flitting between shots of neon bathed, yet somehow gloomy cities to the muted, yellow irradiated desert of Nevada. Thematically, it did the original justice - still posing the same difficult existential questions about just what humanity is and what identity truly is. Harrison Ford also gave one of the strongest performances since the original and Ryan Gosling knocked it out of the goddamn park as K.
Still a shame that we got Leto instead of Bowie, but you can't have it all.