Blade Runner 2049

If further proof were required of the need for Ridley Scott to step away from directing more entries in Ridley Scott-instigated franchises, the Denis Villeneuve-helmed Blade Runner 2049 is it. I mean Scott's Prometheus should have provided sufficient evidence for this argument but that didn't stop his Alien Covenant happening, and look at us now: adrift in a once-beloved series of films which is now 67% vomit.

Anyway I'm not here to shit on the Alien franchise or Ridley Scott. God knows Blade Runner 2049 reeks of him in all the best ways and few of the worst, enhancing and expanding upon the mud-thick mood and atmosphere he conjured up in Blade Runner 2019 (why Warner Home Video haven't renamed it that and re-released every available cut of it is a marketing mystery). Villeneuve's epic, almost comically grandiose vision reaches into every nook and cranny of the sequel but it couldn't exist without everything Scott - alongside cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth, production designer Lawrence G Paull and "visual futurist" (sure) Syd Mead - achieved in the original.

The original Blade Runner. You've probably never heard of it.

While the Hovis-peddling Geordie came up with the idea for 2049 then graciously took a back seat, the 1982 vintage's splendidly-monikered writer Hampton Fancher is back after 35 years in semi-wilderness, and he's turned out a much more satisfying script this time despite being aided by Michael Green, whose past triumphs include, uh, Green Lantern and - yep - Alien Covenant. Example: the original Blade Runner is often criticised for Deckard's (Harrison Ford) rubbish detective skills (to be fair he isn't actually a detective, he just has a magic box that can see round corners in photographs), but the sequel features a thoroughly thought-out trail of breadcrumbs for new replicant-retirer K (Ryan Gosling) to follow, and it's a mystery you'll be unpacking for hours post-viewing.

Officer K's odyssey carries him through a panoply of cosmically stunning-looking interiors and exteriors, envisaged by Villeneuve and executed by Roger Deakins and Dennis Gassner (replacing Cronenweth and Paull respectively) with alternately nightmarish and divine genius. The Neo-Tokyo look of Ridley Scott's 2019 version of LA has been amplified and compounded into an oceanic sprawl of densely-packed tower blocks that just about allow room for the crass neon advertising (Pan Am are doing surprisingly well in 2049) and little else, while calmer spaces offer an incongruous serenity offset only by the bristly, unpredictable characters who inhabit them. Meanwhile the score - an imposing, unsettling combination of Vangelis' original themes fused with Benjamin Wallfisch and Hans Zimmer's thundering chords - leaves you in no doubt that this is a colossal, earth-shattering journey we're on.

Except... it isn't. I've spent this long wanging on about how technically wondrous Blade Runner 2049 is (and forgive me, I haven't even mentioned Renée April's eyeball-strokingly fit costume design) mainly because I don't want to give away any of the plot, but also because what there is of that plot is kind of, well... low-key. Not so much as the original, but given how big Villeneuve goes with everything else here, the core mystery feels microscopic in comparison. Bigger consequences are threatened in the event that Officer K fails to successfully run his blades, but never to a point where you really, really need him to win. It's a bit like having a Bond film where the villain's plan is, say, to restrict access to clean water: clearly undesirable, but not particularly cinematic.

"Please don't make this about Bond"

And so we're left with those themes of artificial intelligence, identity and slavery that coldly mooch about in the original Blade Runner without ever threatening to stir the emotions, and which do much the same here. The existential angst Officer K endures is welcome, given that it was mainly left to Rutger Hauer's pretentious prick replicant to pontificate on the (in)human condition in 1982, but Gosling - as much as I love him - has trouble expressing that angst; the one scene in which he displays anything other than cool detachment hovers a little too close to unintentionally amusing. Sure, he's essentially a stoic noir gumshoe archetype, used to keeping his head down and his mouth shut for reasons I won't go into, but K goes through some serious headfuckery that requires a little more than the trademark blank stare Gosling favours here. At some point Villeneuve should have reminded him that this wasn't a Nicolas Winding Refn film.

In place of genuine emotion, there is at least genuine entertainment, not least from the appearance of one H. Ford, whose cheese-based first line is dangerously daft to the ears of the non-literary-minded among us (hi). Ford pulls off his return to a much-loved role as successfully here as he did in The Force Awakens, and Deckard's first meeting with Officer K is a literal and visual bruiser. But further joy is to be found in the performances of Robin Wright (as K's boss), whose face and hair I could gawp at for hours; Ana de Armas (as K's hologrammatic housewife Joi), who comes closest to evoking sympathy for what is basically an app; and Sylvia Hoek's high-kicking henchbitch Luv. Jared Leto is fine but ineffectual and talks in clichéd ponderous villainese, and Dave Bautista is fucking massive.

Henchbitches gonna hench

Plot holes are inevitable in something so ambitious, and these minor irritations undermine the project's overwhelming pomp to remind you that it was made by humans after all, despite the bafflingly reverential raves you may have read. And needless to say, at 163 minutes it's in dire need of a haircut here and there. If Blade Runner 2049 fails at all it's because where it should be emotionally devastating it's only mildly thought-provoking, but then it is a sequel to Blade Runner: hardly cinema's most overwhelmingly sentimental experience. 2049 is still essential for fans of the original and nigh-unmissable for the rest of us, and whatever its flaws, it's crucial to remember just how bad it could have been. Ridley Scott could have directed it.

LFF 2016: La La Land

Watching Damien Chazelle's La La Land in 2016 - a year which, both inside and outside the cinema, has been caked in some of the most feculent matter to spurt from the world's rancid arsehole - is like being slapped in the face with a bright yellow cartoon hand that bursts into stars on impact with your chops, showering you with music and joy and laughter and love and all the things that have so singularly failed to represent this year. It's no wonder that it isn't released in the UK until next January; 2016 simply doesn't deserve it.

Thanks to the London Film Festival though, a handful of jammy bastards (hello) got to experience it early, and an experience is exactly what it is. La La Land is not so much a film as a celebration: a vital and jubilant reminder that beautiful, colourful, widescreen magic still exists, and a declaration from its ambitious, talented and irritatingly young director that he absolutely did not come to dick about. This is the full package, the real deal; oozing with talent and crammed to the edge of every frame with heart-bursting wonderment.

Awful.

So first things first: La La Land is a musical. If you don't like musicals, you probably won't like La La Land (also, the fuck is wrong with you?). It's a nostalgic, traditional, delightful musical in which Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone play Sebastian and Mia, two charming dream-chasers who sing upbeat songs about love and togetherness. But it's also a forward-looking, modern, achingly sad musical in which Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone play Sebastian and Mia, two occasionally shitty people who sing wistful songs about failure and regret. It's both comfortably predictable and refreshingly unexpected; like the city it's named for, La La Land's dazzling sunshine casts pitch black shadows.

Announcing itself with a stupendous opening number that fizzes with primary colours and fluid camera moves (like most of the songs, it's presented as one long, unimaginably complex shot), La La Land earned its first round of applause at my screening before the title even appeared. Just one display of Chazelle's balls-out confidence occurs towards the end of that number, when someone skateboards off the bonnet of a car: why would anyone in their right mind put something so likely to go wrong at the climax of such a complicated shot? You soon realise, though, that the whole film is full of risks like that. Chazelle's chutzpah is fully justified, and there are two very good reasons why: Stone and Gosling.

Unbearable.

With this, the third film in which they have not only starred together but also played lovers, Ry & Em have truly reached peak adorable. These two could play Donald Trump and Theresa May in a romantic comedy right now and the world would fall in love with them. Stone, already a proven comedic performer, employs every muscle in her face - not least those around her enormous, irresistible eyes - to render us submissive to her naturally devastating humour, while Gosling, who somehow rarely gets the chance to unleash his obvious streak of innate comedy, lets rip here. A scene in which his vaguely pretentious jazz pianist is forced to play keytar in an '80s tribute band (complete with outfit that qualifies as a fire hazard) is already inherently funny, but Gosling's humiliated expression lifts the gag into orbit.

For a cynical noughties audience, it takes actors of this calibre to sell something as potentially disastrous as a song-and-dance routine. But sell it they do: they're no Fred and Ginger (Gosling in particular is occasionally less than light on his feet), but they throw themselves into each number with spirit, Chazelle's inventive direction and Linus Sandgren's sensational cinematography helping to conceal any missteps. And in celebrating the movies (Stone's aspiring actress / writer works as a barista on the Warner Bros lot), the set-pieces recall the likes of Top Hat, Singin' In The Rain and The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg with just the right amount of deference.

Intolerable.

Despite all the joy-soaked fantasy on offer, La La Land - like Chazelle's Whiplash before it - smuggles a dark and unexpectedly realistic message about the true cost of success (albeit a far more relatable one than in Whiplash), and the film's final act skulks out from beneath the glossy veneer of its preceding ninety minutes with subversive intent, even as it unleashes a breathless, wordless and peerless finale. Chazelle makes some bold choices that might not go down well with everyone, but they breathe fresh air into what could have been a classily-executed but one-note ode to the golden age of musicals.

Of course if you're a terrible nitpicker you might find yourself lamenting the cursory appearance of a handful of first-act characters: Sebastian's sister pops up for a single expository scene and is summarily forgotten; Mia's housemates get one song before suffering a similar fate; JK Simmons is cruelly teased in a hilarious but all-too-brief cameo. But if those guys are sacrificed then it's on the altar of the film's incandescent leads, and given that they're probably the two people with whom most of us would want to be trapped on a desert island, the absence of a few minor characters is hardly felt. It's almost as if La La Land has nothing else wrong with it whatsoever.

The summer of '16: fine

Top Cat Begins not included

Prickled by a nagging suspicion that the summer of 2016 was going to be one of the worst times to be in a cinema since the day someone cracked one off watching Skyfall, I made the decision in May to take a semi-earned sabbatical from this year's blockbuster season. This accounts for The Incredible Suit's sole remaining reader having to look at a still from X-Men: Apocalypse every time they visited the blog in the last four months, and for that I apologise.

It didn't last, though. Like when you pass a horrific car accident on the motorway so get off at the next exit and come back for a better look and a few selfies (come on, we all do it), I couldn't resist finding out exactly what was so grim about this summer, so I binge-watched much of it in the last couple of weeks. Turns out it hasn't actually been apocalyptically bad, so much as just stultifyingly average. Not a single one of these films has improved my existence, and only one of them made me want to scoop out my eyeballs, although I have thus far avoided Suicide Squad. So here's a look back at some of the humdrummery that's passed for entertainment in cinemas recently, which might come across as an exercise in futility but does at least get rid of that X-Men: Apocalypse still.

The Nice Guys

If I could wish for the movie of my dreams, it would probably be a '70s-set buddy action comedy written and directed by Shane Black and starring Ryan Gosling and Hugh Jackman. Eh, four out of five ain't bad. So it's kind of upsetting that I didn't care much for The Nice Guys: an unexceptional plot, precious little action or comedy for an action comedy (although Gosling at last gets to prove he can do funny), damp squibs of dialogue that should have sparked fireworks and a general sense of low-key mediocrity. Struggling to remember anything about it now, except for one hilariously sick shot that was in the trailer so doesn't count. Not terrible, but way short of the movie of my dreams.

The Neon Demon

This isn't a film, it's a Fuck You, with NWR™ finally (and quite deliberately) becoming the thing his critics have been accusing him of for years: a vain, surface-obsessed director wanking himself silly over the beauty of horror at the expense of logic and plot. It's a celebration of superficiality, as pretentious and vacuous as its subject matter... or is it? As monstrous greed and ambition plague an industry where purity has a brutally short shelf-life before it's devoured by envy and success from within and without, The Neon Demon might just stand as one of the most honest semi-autobiographies ever filmed. I just have no idea if I like it or not.

Ghostbusters

Personally I'd have preferred a sequel set in the original films' universe 30 years on to a remake, but taken on its own terms Ghostbusters: The XX Generation acquits itself admirably. Feig and co-writer Katie Dippold cherry-pick the sturdiest structural beats from the '84 vintage to establish their team and, if anything, improve on the rest: the villain here, while thinly sketched, is far more satisfying than Gozer and the ill-defined Zuul. The cast are delightful, with Leslie Jones making the most of her character's better thought-out integration into the team compared to Ernie Hudson's token tacking-on, and Kate McKinnon licking her proton whip-gun doohickeys is a sight I won't forget in a hurry. As always with Feig, some of the humour doesn't land, it's too long and there's some downright sloppy editing, but if Ghostbusters (2016) is ultimately a ramshackle romp that sometimes doesn't work, then it can at least hold its head high and proudly claim to be the equal of Ghostbusters (1984).

Star Trek Beyond

What a difference a JJ makes. The man who boldly went and rebooted Star Trek for the 21st century may not be perfect, but he could direct Justin Lin under the table any day. Lin's Trek is a baffling, disjointed mess: characters have to yell screeds of expository dialogue to explain what's going on in the action scenes, and the fun that permeated every frame of Abrams' first film has been blown out of the airlock along with Gene Roddenberry's founding principles. There's little sense of camaraderie, tension or what's at stake, and it's so gloomily-shot for the most part that it's more deserving of the title "Into Darkness" than its predecessor. Thematically and aesthetically desolate, the only thing this Star Trek is Beyond is hope.

Jason Bourne

With Jason Bourne's arc neatly tied up in the first film, and then again in the third, a fourth excuse to have him efficiently beating up civil servants while avoiding CCTV cameras was always going to be a bit of a push. Greengrass and co-writer Christopher Rouse toss off a humdrum truth for Bourne to uncover this time, and pack him off through all the same motions to the point where he's become as clichéd as that other JB guy, but without the fun. The film moves like a shark (few people shoot tippity-tapping on a PC as thrillingly as Paul Greengrass) and it's great to see Vincent Cassel on villainous form, but this is an unmemorable instalment that squanders the chance to push the genre like its predecessors did. Furthermore, it has been unacceptable to accompany your end credits with Moby since 2002. Like its permanently brow-furrowing hero, the Bourne franchise simply cannot move on.

Finding Dory

It's a sign that Pixar have spoiled us too much over the years by repeatedly and flawlessly executing the search and/or rescue plot blueprint, when even something as delightful as Finding Dory feels like a stop-gap between better films. The lack of novelty value here means stronger character arcs are required to deliver another masterpiece, but both Dory and Marlin's inner journeys feel underdeveloped and forced. That said, there isn't a character that isn't exquisitely realised, and the ante-upping of the bonkers final act pretty much papers over the cracks in the formula. It's Pixar by numbers, but what beautifully arranged numbers.

Sausage Party

MAYBE IF I FUCKIN' YELL THIS AT THE TOP OF MY FUCKIN' VOICE AND SAY FUCK EVERY OTHER FUCKIN' WORD AND GENERALLY BE AS FUCKIN' OBNOXIOUS AS I FUCKIN' CAN THEN MAYBE JUST FUCKIN' MAYBE I'LL HAVE WRITTEN THE FUNNIEST FUCKIN' THING THIS YEAR!!!!!!! OR MAYBE I'LL JUST COME ACROSS AS A HORNY DOPE-ADDLED FUCKIN' TEENAGER WHO THINKS THAT REPEATEDLY FUCKIN' SHOUTIN' FUCK IS AN ADEQUATE FUCKIN' SUBSTITUTE FOR, YOU KNOW, ACTUAL FUCKIN' JOKES!!!! AND MAYBE I HAD THE FUCKIN' EMBRYO OF A VAGUELY FUCKIN' INTERESTING IDEA FOR WHAT I WAS WRITING BUT THE FUCKIN' ASININITY OF THE FUCKIN' EXECUTION MEANT YOU COULD ACTUALLY FUCKIN' FEEL YOURSELF GETTING MORE FUCKIN' STUPID THE LONGER IT DRAGGED ON, MOTHERFUCKER!!! I DON'T KNOW!!! FUUUUUCK!!!

Lost River

It's knocking on for a year and a half since Ryan Gosling last graced our screens, in 2013's undisputable best film Only God Forgives. What's he been doing since then, you might ask? Directing a film, I might answer. More accurately, though, I might instead answer: dicking around with a camera, some chums, Nicolas Winding Refn's leftover neon lights and a script he knocked out while shifting a stubborn poo one rainy lunchtime.

In doing some half-hearted post-viewing research on Lost River, I came across the following question in the film's IMDb forums:

The question was posted, in all seriousness, by a "charles-richardson1", although I would not have been remotely surprised to find its true author was "BabyGoose80" or similar because "Lynch-inspired student film" is uncannily close to what Gosling has quacked out with his debut feature. Having clearly spent his downtime on the sets of Refn's films watching his friend weave his dreamlike magic, Gosling has thrown together a woozy, faintly surreal film which appears to be about nothing, with no characters to give a hoot about and nothing of any substance to grab hold of. It's Refn-lite: fluorescent lighting and moody electronica abound (Johnny Jewel scores the film; his side project Chromatics provided the iconic Tick Of The Clock for Drive), but with none of the precision, wit or imagination on display in Drive or Only God Forgives.

As Billy, a cash-strapped single mom in a near-deserted, almost post-apocalyptic town, Christina Hendricks is forced into various indignities by bank manager and pantomime villain Ben Mendelsohn. Her son Bones (Ian De Caestecker) wants to help, his girlfriend Rat (Saiorse Ronan) babbles on about a curse that must be lifted to stop the bad things happening, and meanwhile a miscast Matt Smith roams the streets declaring himself king of the world and doing unspeakable things with scissors. As the nominal bad guys, Smith and Mendelsohn are the only things worth watching Lost River for, although without anyone else interesting to play off they're cast adrift; characters without a story.

While none of this is especially painful to sit through, there just doesn't seem to be any point to it all. If Gosling has one, he's failed to articulate it in either his script or direction, and the tragedy is that there's nothing to suggest that any further forays into filmmaking would be any more worthwhile. Obviously I love Ryan Gosling more than life itself, and I wish him all the best in whatever he chooses to do, but I think the best thing we can do is to erect an invisible wall in front of all the cameras on his films and make sure he stays on the brightly-lit side of it.

Seven films I'll be giving a shit about in

WHILE WE'RE YOUNG

Wait, there's a film about a middle-aged childless married man who hangs out with people younger than himself in a pathetic effort to hang on for dear life to the last remaining tatters of his youth? Where the fuck are my royalties? (3rd)

COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK

I was in the Black Bear on Whitchurch High Street when I found out Kurt Cobain had died. I was wearing faded black jeans that didn't fit me and one of those collarless grandad shirts that everyone wore in 1994. I was drinking a snakebite and black and I had precisely 209 millilitres left of it. The temperature was 19.4 degrees inside and 11.2 degrees outside. The relative humidity level was 38%. Anyway this documentary looks good. (10th)

JOHN WICK

I'll be honest, I know nothing about this film except it's got Keanu Reeves in it and he kills everyone because they killed his dog, which is a revenge motive sorely lacking in today's action films. The next Die Hard should have John McClane disembowel a terrorist because they thought the ghoulash he cooked was a little too salty. (10th)

LOST RIVER

We all know Ryan Gosling is the greatest human being alive right now, so what could possibly go wrong with his directorial debut? I mean there's no way it won't be brilliant, right? How can it not be? How? How, I ask you? How? (10th)

CHILD 44

Tom Hardy! Noomi Rapace! Gary Oldman! Paddy Considine! Vincent Cassel! Joel Kinnaman. (17th)

THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

Never heard of it. (24th)

A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE

The maverick scheduling of this against The Avengers is going to split audiences right down the middle. Are you Team Joss or Team Roy? (24th)

London Film Festival: Blue Valentine

As ideal first date movies go, Blue Valentine is absolutely not the one to take your potential spouse to, unless you both get off on the misery, destruction and downright horribleness of a failed relationship. Although frankly if that's the case you're probably the kind of person who would rather spend a first date at an abattoir rather than a cinema, which means you're reading the wrong blog.

That's not to say Blue Valentine is a wrist-slashing bleakfest; it's actually witty and charming but also brutally honest. Cutting between the cockle-warming start and heartbreaking collapse of a four-year relationship, it sets Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling the challenge of playing characters at both ends of the hopeful / hopeless spectrum, and they're both incredible.

The script contains more comedy than you would expect from such a potentially depressing story, not to mention the second-most un-PC child molestor joke I've ever heard (not that there's an abundance of PC child molestor jokes) and it's intelligently directed by first-timer and amateur Ryan Gosling lookalike Derek Cianfrance.

Not only that but at as a bonus you get to see Ryan Gosling in one of the great movie jumpers of our time, and you discover what the inside of a robot's vagina looks like. If either of those things crop up in any other films at this year's LFF I'll be very surprised.

In other news, having praised Ryan Rodney Reynolds for his amazing turn in Buried, it would be remiss of me not to point this out:

Blue Valentine is showing at 6pm on Friday 15th October at Vue Leicester Square and at 1.30pm on Sunday 17th October at the NFT on the South Bank.

To comment on this post, click here