Blade Runner: The Final Cut

Why do people keep returning to director Ridley Scott’s deliberately dreary 1982 neo-noir futurist melodrama, based on fiction by Philip K. Dick, with Harrison Ford sulking through a rainy Los Angeles and stalking androids in silly costumes? Two reasons. First, for all its armor of brutish urban dystopia, it has a gooey center. Just look at the rapport that Ford finally earns with fellow softhearted tough guy Rutger Hauer as his replicant opponent, Roy. Yes, Blade Runner is, for Scott at least, a curiously sensitive picture. Second, he just keeps releasing different versions of the damn thing—and different versions of the versions. See this one properly, on the big screen, because before you know it, like tears in rain, it’ll be gone again—at least until the release five years hence of Blade Runner: The Yeah, Sorry About Implying That Last One Would Be Final, 30th Anniversary Cut.