If every new film made today is to a greater or lesser degree an echo box of past possibilities, what's notable is how much Villeneuve gives those echoes room to breathe and to be new.

| Mar 8, 2018

In the end, for all its pleasures, it's difficult to view Blade Runner 2049 as anything but an elaborate echo of the original, neither true sequel nor reboot, unclear of its own identity.

| Oct 30, 2017

The film dares to be ambiguous, but ambiguity is a bad fit with the current critical mood that art must be prescriptive rather than reflective.

| Oct 17, 2017

On its own merits, Blade Runner 2049 is a very strong film; as a sequel, it's nothing short of brilliant.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 12, 2017

Watching Ford and Gosling onscreen together suggests an evolution of masculinity within the films, one that exists along a continuum of noir leading men, from those failing to hide their tenderhearted nature to the solemn figures who make stoicism an art.

| Oct 11, 2017

This is a rare sequel that enhances, arguably even surpasses, the mastery of its original. Harrison Ford dubbed it 'a cathedral' of a movie and he's right - this is one to worship.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 11, 2017

Spectacular enough to win over new generations of viewers, yet deep enough to reassure diehard fans that their cherished memories haven't been reduced to tradable synthetic implants.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 8, 2017

From the grayed-out countrysides over which the sky has closed like a lid; to the drizzly neon decadence of Los Angeles; to the Ozymandian wreckage of Las Vegas-the film is a visual splendor of the first order.

| Oct 8, 2017

It does something sci-fi movies rarely do anymore, and sequels do even less: it shows us things we've never seen.

| Oct 7, 2017

A meditative and moving film, sumptuously photographed by legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins in the finest and most astonishing work of his career.

Full Review | Oct 7, 2017

From the get-go, Villeneuve paints Blade Runner 2049 in his unique style. This is a rare, unhurried, futuristic film, much like Villeneuve's Arrival - philosophical and meditative.

| Oct 6, 2017

Blade Runner 2049, on the other hand, manages to be prettier but far more prosaic.

| Oct 6, 2017

The rare sequel that truly merits its existence, updating and expanding the themes of the 1982 original to bring them from the 20th century into the 21st.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 6, 2017

Just as Scott did in the original film, Villeneuve adopts an unhurried pace and some may find the plot rather too dense and convoluted. Probably it will take more than one viewing to make complete sense of it.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 6, 2017

Villeneuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins give us staggering new visions of the future, ones that confound and trance and mystify in Blade Runner 2049 even while making rich cinematic senses.

| Oct 6, 2017

Blade Runner 2049 is heavy with portentous and pretentious hoo-ha.

| Original Score: C+ | Oct 6, 2017

Despite all the overlaps, this is not a simulacrum of a Ridley Scott film. It is unmistakably a Denis Villeneuve film, inviting us to tumble, tense with anticipation, into his doomy clutches.

| Oct 6, 2017

There's a frisson in seeing fecundity exalted in a world bent on selling pleasure-sex.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 6, 2017

Blade Runner 2049 has been made with impeccable craftsmanship and taste, yet the film is so terrified of disreputability that it renders itself dead from the waist down, unable to derive pleasure even from a theoretically kinky robot three-way.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 6, 2017

It takes on the themes and universe set forth in the original and builds on them, and manages to live up to the massive expectations that greet it. This is no replicant, it's the real deal.

| Original Score: B+ | Oct 6, 2017