Blade Runner

Released: June 25, 1982

Studio: Warner Bros.

Genre: sci fi

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 32.87 Worldwide: 41.47

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: ? Worldwide: 108.65

Directing: Ridley Scott

Screenwriting: Hampton Fancher

Starring: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, Sean Young, Joe Turkel, Joanna Cassidy, Edward James Olmos

Review:

Based on by Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Blade Runner is a “moody futuristic, sci-fi noirish thriller” ^FS set “in a totalitarian, decaying 21st century Los Angeles” ^FS which is “a cross between a Hong Kong street-market and a decaying 200-story Metropolis.” ^T95 The “future had never looked cooler…and we're not sure it ever will.” ^E18

The “stunning, visually-dazzling effects and…brooding atmosphere” ^FS make for “the most borrowed/stolen-from film of the last 20 years.” ^ML What makes it great is the way director Ridley “Scott and cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth give us rain-slicked streets that stir the libido, and a vision of the future that’s so dead-on, the rock videos, commercials, and features in its wake look silly for trying to improve on it.” ^PM

Harrison Ford plays “a jaded, semi-retired, Philip Marlowe-style ex-cop,” ^FS known as a “blade runner.” His job is to hunt down and eliminate “genetically engineered super-humanoid robots” ^FS known as “replicants” (Hannah, Hauer, Cassidy) who “have mutinied in an attempt to prolong their lifespans.” ^A07 “Seeing their heroic struggle against an inhuman system, the blade-runner ultimately falls in love with an android femme fatale (Young).” ^FS

The movie wasn’t without criticism. “The hero’s voice-over and the ending feel as if they’ve strayed in from another movie.” ^T95 Also, “the android villains are neither menacing nor sympathetic, when ideally they should have been both.” ^T95 However, the movie’s “reputation has grown since the release of the restored Director’s Cut in 1991.” ^T98