I saw it for the first time last night, hacked with commercials. The station, AMC, ran it again immediately, and I watched it again. Been thinking about it off and on all day.
Parts of it are so, so good. Every scene with Rutger Hauer. Daryl Hannah. William Sanderson. The dark world and the melange of clothing and language and the strange tiny children? Mutants? Sanderson’s apartment, filled with his companions. The rain.
I’m a fan of Harrison Ford, but he didn’t fit this movie. He lacks noir authority, and he needed it to pull off Deckard. I watch the scene below, Hauer’s Tears in the Rain speech, and dammit they cut to Ford’s reaction and all he has to offer is his Han Solo “oops’ expression. I’m not sure who from that early 80s era would have worked better. A more coiled-spring type, yes, but I can’t think of a name. But hi-ho open-face sandwich? No. I read that he fought against the inclusion of the voiceovers, and I agree with him. I know they’re a noir convention, but they added nothing to the story and Ford’s voice made them worse.
Yes, I do so like him. But here he’s a pastel golf shirt at a Goth Ball.
Hauer is incredible. Terrifying and mad, yet tender in his scenes with Hannah. But when they’re together in Sanderson’s flat, there’s that undercurrent. That they schemed to get in and now they’re there. That they’ve come for something, and they won’t leave until they get it. That Sanderson is likely a dead man. And they do it all with looks. The danger comes off of them in waves as they smile at one another.
I guess you could say I was enthralled.