Blade Runner

Movie, 1982, dir. Ridley Scott

Now, I'm all about some dystopia (loved Hunger Games! must review...), but to my lovely fiance's chagrin I don't always like "dark" movies.  This one may have crossed into that territory for me a little bit.  Let me explain.

First of all, I was sort of hoping that there would be, like, ice skates or at least roller blades involved in this movie.  Perhaps more like Rollerball, which I didn't see, but judging by its 2.8 stars on IMDb, looks to be just a fun romp.  Once I realized that the title Blade Runner was just a seemingly somewhat arbitrary name for the profession of the main character, Deckard, I got over the ice skates thing, but never ceased to be a little disenchanted.

Main idea: Deckard hunts down fancypants robots that look just like humans and have escaped from their slave colony or something.  This does lead to some cool scenes, like interviews where the blade runner people try to tell if they're interviewing people or robots (they call them "replicants"), and chase scenes through the thoroughly depressing-looking future LA.

It also leads to some ridiculous noir detective-type voiceovers and, as a product of its time, horrible synthesizer music to emphasize how dark and lonely the crowded future can be.  Those elements aside, I can see why a lot of people really think this movie is edgy and genre-defining and generally just cool sci-fi.  In the end, it's just too...dark for my taste.  Also, I did not care for Harrison Ford (Deckard) at all.  Guy seems like he is reading his lines off cue cards and hasn't decided what inflection to put in them yet.