Blade Runner 2049: 10 Reasons It's Massively Overrated
5. It Is Too Serious For Its Own Good
Blade Runner wasn't the most happy-go-lucky movie ever made, but Blade Runner 2049 makes it look like Caddyshack (okay, maybe not Caddyshack, but you get the point - this sequel is a very, very serious film that refuses to be anything else). The original film had a sense of the pulp about it, which gave it a romantic element.
The result of the sequel's almost clawing sense of seriousness, however, is that it quickly becomes tiresome to actually sit through. The tone is purposely flat and clinical, but for a picture with a 163 minute runtime you need something more. You need moments of light and shade... and this is a film with only shade.
You could certainly argue that the flat tone was implemented to create a sense of time and place - a muted world without emotions. Still, the first Blade Runner flick was set in the same world and managed to be romantic, frightening, funny (remember the scene when Deckard pretends to search for holes in Zhora's dressing room and we all had a bloody great laugh about it?) and genuinely affecting.
You couldn't use any of the same words to describe Blade Runner 2049, though, because the director's drive to make the film serious overwhelms everything else.