Starring Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Robin Wright, Jared Leto, Barkhad Abdi, Lennie James, Mackenzie Davis, and Sylvia Hoeks

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Sony Pictures, out now

Agent K (Ryan Gosling) goes on the trail of veteran Blade Runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) who disappeared from dystopian Los Angeles thirty years earlier with Nexus 6 replicant Rachel. And that’s all the story you want to know.

If ever a film suffered from anticipointment (that dreaded fear that something you love is going to be ruined by a sequel, remake or reimagining, then Blade Runner 2049 was the prime candidate. While a box office failure on its release, the subsequent reappraisal through multiple cuts and rereleases now recognises Blade Runner as a defining sci-fi classic that changed the look of future movies. It’s one of my favourite films, and I was in no hurry to see the original sullied by an unnecessary follow-up, a fear intensified by Ridley Scott’s Alien follow-ups Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.

As an aficionado of the original, it creates two scenarios – I’ll either be a hard nut to crack, hanging on to such a high, earlier benchmark, or I’ll be so positively predisposed towards the material that I won’t be able to be objective. An early positive sign was the involvement of director Denis Villeneuve, who has delivered an impressive brace of movies – Prisoners, Sicario and Arrival, the latter revealing an ability to present intelligent sci-fi to a mainstream audience. And then Harrison Ford’s involvement piqued my interest – here was a man who did not have a good time with the original and has no need for the money to make a cash-in follow-up, which suggested that he thought this was going to be something special.

Hampton Fancher, who shares a co-screenplay credit with David Peoples on the original, is back for the sequel, this time sharing the duties with Michael (American Gods) Green, taking the adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to new places. Do we get the big questions answered or see original characters make a return?

I’m being tight-lipped here – go find out yourself. Some reviewers are falling over themselves to reveal what’s in the box of tricks, which is pretty reductive, because everyone or everything who is or isn’t in it is/isn’t there for a reason. The story is a natural extension of the original, and unlike Ford’s return in Star Wars Episode VII, this time he’s not just here to pass the baton to the next generation.

While it seems hard to believe, Los Angeles 2049 is even grimier than 2019’s dystopia. This is dystopia squared, this world now blighted by extreme weather and food shortages. Budapest stands in for LA, its Art Deco and Brutalist buildings providing the perfect environments for those who haven’t yet made it off-world.

Ryan Gosling is great as Agent K, prowling the streets of a very different La La Land; we see a lot of the movie through his eyes as he pieces together the mystery. This means that you’re not set adrift if you haven’t seen the original.

Harrison Ford slips very easily back into gruff Deckard mode, and maybe there was a little fanboy squee as he brandished that classic double-trigger blaster. The sight of the Spinner flying cars and other callbacks to the original, from clothing, to glassware, to drinks bottles, are an extra treat for the fans, but never get in the way of the story. And even Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch’s score manages to reference Vangelis without being a slave to it. Roger Deakins’ cinematography must also be singled out – after 13 nominations, this guy finally deserves an Oscar for his artistry and light palette.

Verdict: 35 years later, we get the sequel we never thought we needed or would be made. Who would commit a huge studio budget to make a sequel to a film that never did big numbers at the box office, and why would Harrison Ford want to subject himself to more misery? Quite simply, because this is a sequel that deserved to be made. Villeneuve’s winning streak remains unbroken, and what a joy it is to return to such a miserable place. 9/10

Nick Joy